Dead Against the Lawyers

by Roderic Jeffries

  The Treasurer turned and spoke to the three men on his right and to the three on his left. He addressed Holter again. ‘We feel that it will be best if your witnesses retire from Hall until you wish to call them. With their permission, they will be escorted to the Benchers’ Common Room.’

  The butler came down from the dais to the centre of the hall and escorted Brock and Wallace up on to the dais, past the end of the long table, and out of Hall through the rear doorway.

  ‘Mr Holter,’ said the Treasurer, ‘I shall state briefly the reasons for holding this hearing and then you may make whatever statement you wish and may call your witnesses. Any member of this tribunal is at liberty at any stage of the proceedings to ask whatever questions he may wish. Afterwards, we shall retire. We hope to be able to give you our decision today. If we feel unable to do this, we shall deliver it to you at the first opportunity.

  ‘Mr Holter, in the full knowledge of the fact that you are a Bencher of this ancient and honourable Inn, and have been for the past eight years, it must be presumed that you are fully aware of the ethical and moral standards required of all counsel who practise at the English Bar. These standards are not light ones and in many cases may fairly be said to be far higher than are normally to be found in modern society and counsel is required to act with greater moral honesty than is demanded by law. Such standards are, like the British Constitution, largely unwritten: no man can turn over the pages of a text book and find them all, although some of them have been listed.

  ‘Counsel is required to conduct himself with honour in court, by which is meant honour to himself, his client, and the court. An assurance from counsel is accepted by the court: he has spoken on his honour and his honour will not be questioned.

  ‘Because counsel has to be a man of honour and be seen to be a man of honour, he must do nothing which contradicts such state. Certain things obviously present such contradiction: if counsel is found guilty of fraud, exempli gratia clearly he is no longer a man of honour.

  ‘We, the Benchers of this ancient and honourable Inn, feel that your actions and admissions in a properly constituted court of law were such that they must be closely examined by us. We desire to know whether you can justify yourself for having been responsible for the death of a man who accidentally killed himself when one word from you would have prevented his death. We are aware, as anomalous as this may be, that without a specific duty owing to a person there is no legal obligation to do anything to save his life, but we are concerned here with the question as to whether a moral obligation existed and whether you did, in fact, not meet that obligation.

  ‘Will you please address this hearing, Mr Holter.’

  Holter rearranged his papers on the table and in doing so knocked his pencil to the floor. Marriott picked it up. Holter cursed himself for being under so strong a state of nervous tension. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘I would submit that there is no case for me to answer.’

  ‘On what grounds?’

  ‘At the time in question I was not prosecuting or defending counsel, I was the accused. In such circumstances, I cannot be said to be bound by the rules of professional conduct.’

  ‘Unless or until counsel is disbarred, Mr Holter, he is a counsel in the eyes of both the law and the public.’

  ‘Very well, sir. Then I have either to defend myself as a man who told the truth in court and so may be held to be morally responsible for another man’s death, or as a man who lied on oath to escape conviction for a crime he did not commit.’

  ‘Or to escape conviction for a crime he did commit.’

  ‘Sir, this hearing is, by the verdict of a jury, bound to accept the fact of my legal innocence.’

  ‘That finding was in a criminal court. This is not a criminal court of law and is therefore not bound by such previous verdict.’

  ‘But not to accept it is to say that this tribunal reserves the right to re-try me. It may have the right, but such right can only be equitable if all evidence previously given in court is again available to be called here.’

  The Treasurer conferred with his fellow Benchers. ‘We feel the point is well taken.’

  ‘Sir, as an innocent person accused of murder, I was faced at the trial by a weight of evidence against me so great that only the most exceptional action on my part could have had any hope of gaining for me the correct verdict of not guilty. To have restricted myself to the normal limits of evidence would have been to ensure my conviction.’

  ‘It will be difficult to convince us of that.’

  ‘That is why I am calling two witnesses. Detective Inspector Brock was in charge of the police investigations and Edward Wallace made a very vital identification.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘I should first like to call Detective Inspector Brock.’

  The butler left the Hall and returned in less than half a minute with Brock, who was led to the second table before the dais.

  The Treasurer spoke to Brock. ‘Inspector, you are not on oath, but this hearing expects you to speak the truth.’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  ‘Mr Holter will ask you certain questions and then either I or my fellow Benchers may require you to be more explicit on any of the points that have been raised.’

  Carefully and slowly, Holter led Brock through a broad description of the police investigations and how he had come to the conclusion that Charlotte Holter had been present in chambers, that Holter had surprised her and Corry, that he had shot Corry and dragged the body across the floor to deposit it under the photograph of his wife.

  ‘Inspector,’ said the Treasurer, ‘would you have considered the case against Mr Holter an overwhelming one?’

  ‘Yes, my lord. When it became certain Mrs Holter was present I became convinced that this was a murder by a jealous husband.’

  ‘I understand that despite all the evidence actually given in court, Mr Holter in fact strongly denies his wife was present?’

  ‘That is so, my lord.’

  ‘I think the point is this,’ said one of the other Benchers. ‘You were convinced Mrs Holter was present and if this were so then all the other evidence fell into line with the certainty that her husband was the murderer?’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  The Treasurer spoke. ‘Would you agree with what Mr Holter said earlier, that if he was an innocent man he was in such dire risk of being found guilty only exceptional action on his part could possibly hope to bring about a verdict of not guilty?’

  ‘At the beginning of the trial I was certain he would be found guilty.’

  ‘Do you consider that an innocent man who finds himself in danger of being pronounced guilty of a crime is entitled to use any means whatsoever to escape conviction?’

  ‘If he’s innocent, yes.’

  ‘Thank you, Inspector.’ The Treasurer spoke to Holter. ‘Do you wish to put any further questions to the witness?’

  ‘No, thank you, sir. I should like to call Mr Wallace.’

  Brock left the table he had been standing at, crossed to Holter’s table and sat down beyond Marriott. Wallace was escorted into Hall by the butler.

  After the Treasurer’s warning about speaking the truth although not on oath, Holter began to question Wallace.

  ‘I want you to give your evidence now as clearly as you gave it at the trial. The preliminary facts are, are they not, that you work in Hertonhurst, on the evening of the Tuesday you had been to see a sick relative, and that on your way home you walked along the High Street, past the building in which are the chambers?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’ Wallace was not nearly as self-assured in manner as he had been at the trial, almost as if the sense of history which permeated the medieval hall had overawed him.

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘A quarter to seven. The church clock was striking so there wasn’t no argument.’

  ‘Will you please tell the hearing what you saw?’

  ‘A woman comes out of the building. She comes hurrying out
on to the pavement and past me.’

  ‘Did you see her face?’

  ‘No, not properly.’

  ‘Was there a reason for this?’

  ‘I wasn’t really looking at her face, like.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The dress she had on was one of them with the kind of plunge what looks as if it’s going to reach the ground.’

  ‘Was the plunge in the shape of a V?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Do you remember what the dress was like?’

  ‘Well, it was pink, a strawberry pink, and it couldn’t have been a tighter fit, not if she’d been poured into it. There wasn’t no belt. The buttons was the same pink as the dress.’

  ‘What colour was this woman’s hair?’

  ‘Blonde, real blonde. It got me started on thinking about strawberries and cream.’

  ‘Did you notice anything else?’

  ‘Her shoes and her handbag was the same colour as her dress.’

  Can you remember what kind of collar the dress had?’

  ‘No.’

  Holter faced the Benchers. ‘Sir, the relevance of this evidence lies in the fact that my wife has her dresses designed by Miss West. Miss West testified in court that on the Tuesday, when my wife left Miss West’s house, she was wearing a dress which exactly matches this description and that since it had been designed by Miss West it was almost certainly unique. It will be very obvious, sir, that on the face of it, this evidence proves quite conclusively that the woman who came out of chambers at a quarter to seven was my wife. But since I knew that it was not my wife, it was very clear to me at the trial that here was a coincidence of truly staggering proportions, so staggering that it was almost impossible for any juryman to believe it was a coincidence. If the jury accepted all the other evidence and then believed this witness, Wallace ...’

  ‘I was telling the truth,’ said Wallace loudly.

  Holter unsuccessfully tried to hide his annoyance at the interruption. ‘I was not suggesting you were lying. I was merely pointing out that if, quite reasonably, the jury accepted all your evidence, they must ignore the possibility of a coincidence and must believe this woman to have been my wife. Your evidence ...’

  ‘She was dressed like what I said.’

  ‘No one denies that.’

  ‘I can still see the dress in me mind.’

  The Treasurer spoke impatiently. ‘No one is suggesting that you can’t.’

  ‘It had this plunging neckline, and two pleats, and there weren’t no belt, and the shoes and handbag was the same colour, and there was a bit of sticking plaster on her ankle ...’

  ‘What?’ shouted Holter.

  Wallace stared at him.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I only said there was this bit of sticking plaster.’

  ‘You’ve never mentioned that before.’ Holter’s face was white and his hands were trembling. ‘You’ve just made that up.’

  Brock, startled by the turn of the evidence, suddenly lost all his hatred for the other and felt only a bitter sadness.

  Wallace was frightened by the effect of his words. ‘I didn’t make nothing up. There was sticking plaster on her ankle.’

  ‘Which ankle? Come on, man, which ankle?’

  ‘Well, it was ...’ Wallace’s face was screwed up in an expression of concentration. ‘It was the right one.’

  ‘Whereabouts on the ankle?’

  ‘On the outside: on the bit what sticks out. It wasn’t very big, but I noticed it rucked up her stocking a bit.’

  Holter sat down abruptly, as if his legs would no longer support him. He sat, motionless, his face showing the private hell of his utter misery.

  There was a drawn-out silence. No one looked at Holter, except for Wallace who was too slow-witted to have realized yet what the new piece of evidence had meant to Holter.

  ‘Thank you,’ the Treasurer finally said.

  ‘Have ... have I said something wrong?’ Wallace blurted out.

  ‘Please sit down.’ The Treasurer waited until Wallace was sitting down before he spoke again: ‘We shall retire now, to consider the evidence.’

  The Benchers stood up and, with the Treasurer at their head, filed out of the hall, past the butler who held the door open for them.

  Wallace came half-way across to the second table. He looked at Holter, then Marriott, then Brock. ‘I ... I didn’t mean ...’

  ‘It can’t be helped,’ replied Brock wearily.

  ‘But what’s so special about the sticking plaster?’

  ‘Let’s leave it for the moment.’

  ‘But I just don’t get it.’

  ‘I tell you what, Mr Wallace, it’s going to be some time before anything happens so suppose you and Mr Marriott go out and get a drink?’

  ‘Always willing to drink, I’m sure.’

  Brock spoke to Marriott. ‘I’ll stay.’

  Marriott said nothing, but stood up and left, followed by Wallace.

  Brock watched them walk the length of the great hall, beneath the huge double arching beams, and go through one of the two doorways in the oak screen. He lit a cigarette. Holter could be called a fool for taking so long to recognize the truth, but he wasn’t the first husband to be a fool and he wouldn’t be the last. Brock drew on the cigarette. Holter had never believed it was his wife in chambers with Corry and so Holter wasn’t the murderer.

  ‘I ... I never doubted her,’ said Holter. ‘D’you understand, I never doubted her.’

  ‘No, I know.’

  ‘I believed her, whatever the evidence was. It didn’t mean anything that Betty was with that West woman or had borrowed the car when her own seemed perfectly all right. The rest of the world could be bloody-minded enough to want to think she’d driven to chambers for some dirty assignation, but I knew she hadn’t because she’d told me she hadn’t. I believed Wallace had seen another woman with blonde hair and a pink dress. That sort of coincidence can happen. But there couldn’t be two women with blonde hair, pink dresses, pink shoes, pink handbags, and both with bits of sticking plaster on the same part of the same ankle. That couldn’t be a coincidence. Betty grazed her ankle in the kitchen that morning. It bled so I put on a plaster strip with some TCP ointment. Oh, God, it was Betty in chambers!’

  Chapter Eighteen

  THE BENCHERS returned to Hall and sat down. The Treasurer spoke to Holter.

  ‘We are agreed that the circumstances in which you found yourself were so extraordinary that in our opinion you were justified in what you did, even though you used the law to defeat the law. We wish to add that only such quite exceptional circumstances warrant the action you took and that our acceptance of your actions sets no precedent. Counsel must be completely honest with any court and can never normally be justified in using their special knowledge of the law to defend themselves.’

  The Benchers stood up and left the hall. Since they all knew Holter quite well, they were embarrassed by what had happened and were eager to escape from his presence.

  Brock spoke. ‘Let’s go, Mr Holter.’

  Holter forced himself to accept that no matter how great was his misery, the world had not stopped turning. ‘All right.’

  Brock collected up the papers on the table and carefully packed them into the brief-case. ‘We’ve got to find Marriott and Wallace. Perhaps we can have a drink with them if they’re still in a pub.’

  ‘All right,’ said Holter for the second time.

  They left the hall, passing through the left-hand doorway in the screen. A man in white coat and striped trousers was waiting to lock up. ‘How did it go, sir?’ he asked.

  ‘Mr Holter has not been disbarred,’ replied Brock.

  ‘Very glad to hear it, sir.’ The attendant looked at Holter’s misery-haunted face. ‘Been a bit of a shock, like?’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Brock, ‘it has.’

  *

  Holter and Marriott arrived back at chambers at 5.20 in the afternoon. Holter went st
raight through to his room, brushing past Traynton who asked with pathetic eagerness what had happened, and sat down at his desk. The first thing he was really conscious of was the framed photograph of a smiling Charlotte. He picked it up and threw it on to the ground. The glass did not break because of the way it fell on to the carpet. Cursing, he leaned over, picked it up, and replaced it on the desk.

  He lit a cigarette. Into his mind there flashed picture after picture of Betty and himself together: coming out of the registry office, their honeymoon on the luxury cruise, buying her clothes which were so expensive that for the first six months she was frightened to wear them, buying jewellery, Charlotte laughing, Charlotte wildly and passionately making love ...

  He stubbed out the cigarette in the ash-tray. When a woman did this to you, what was the answer? Kill her? God, how he wanted to because he knew that he never could, or would. ‘Yet each man kills the thing he loves.’

  There was a knock on the door and Marriott came in. ‘About Mr Traynton’s farewell party, sir? Shall I say you can’t attend?’

  He wanted to answer yes, but instinct told him that in carrying out his duty lay his only hope for temporary mental rest. ‘I’m coming. Has anyone put the champagne on ice?’

  ‘It’s all in a tin bath I managed to borrow from the florists down the road, sir. Mr Resse saw to getting the ice from the fishmongers earlier on.’

  ‘How many bottles?’

  ‘The six, sir. If that’s all finished, there won’t be anyone going home this side of tomorrow.’

  ‘What about the savouries?’

  ‘All delivered. And I made very certain we got the proportion of caviar we ordered.’

  ‘Does Josephus know what happened at the hearing?’

  ‘I’ve not told him.’

  He didn’t know why, but it seemed to matter a great deal to him whether Traynton knew what Charlotte had done to him. ‘Are Oliver and Alan ready?’

  ‘Yes, sir, and Mr Aiden.’

  Holter looked at his watch. ‘Josephus will be putting on his outdoor clothes any minute now. We’d better start.’

  ‘Have you got the pen and pencil?’

  Holter pulled open the top right-hand drawer of his desk and took out the case on which, in gold, were Traynton’s initials. He dropped the case into his coat pocket and stood up.