Читать книгу The Man Who Changed His Plea - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 9

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Sir Frederick Leversen scrutinized his visitor through his horn-rimmed spectacles with a curiosity not altogether unmixed with a dash of suspicion. However, so far as he could see, Martin, although there was something about him vaguely familiar, was everything he should be socially, his smile was disarming and courteous. He thanked the great lawyer for the permission to approach him with the proper amount of gratitude.

"Very kind of you to see me, I'm sure, Sir Frederick," he said. "I shall try not to take up too much of your time."

"You had better not, sir," was the somewhat curt reply. "As you and the world know, I am a busy man. Your name here, I see, is Martin Campbell—did you bring any introduction to me?"

"I thought perhaps," Martin replied, with a half-apologetic gesture, "that I should not need one. My full name is Martin Campbell Brockenhurst."

The lawyer took off his glasses and polished them slowly with a white silk handkerchief, his complexion as pallid as the sheets of parchment upon his desk, but a moment later his bright, hard eyes were hidden behind his spectacles.

"The name of Martin Brockenhurst," he said, "recalls to me very disagreeable memories."

"I was afraid it might, sir. It was for that reason that I ventured to abbreviate it a little by using the name under which I was better known some half a dozen years ago. You may think that I have been long in coming, sir. There have been reasons for that. Now that I am here, I want to recall to your memory for a few minutes the greatest case that you ever handled."

"Why should I do this at your request, sir?" the lawyer asked, and his hard, dry voice seemed to breathe an underlying threat. "I am too busy a man to have my time wasted by answering idle questions or receiving unwelcome visitors."

"I may be unwelcome—but I am here," Martin said firmly, "and you will forgive my saying, Sir Frederick, that it will be to your interests to answer the harmless questions I have to ask."

"About the Lebur case?"

"Naturally."

"The case has been closed and finished with for six or more years now."

"Precisely," Martin agreed. "Still, the case cannot be considered absolutely dead whilst the persons chiefly concerned in it are still alive."

"That," the lawyer remarked hardly, "is not the legal view."

"Perhaps not," Martin admitted. "Still, you must admit, Sir Frederick, that there have been cases which have been reopened on the disclosure of fresh evidence—and reopened with a very unexpected result."

"Have you any fresh evidence?" Sir Frederick asked, with a slightly scornful smile. "There was a newspaper campaign about this case, I remember—someone tried to reopen it a few years ago. Are you trying to dig up the ashes of this?"

"Indeed I am not, sir," Martin replied. "My present inclinations are more in the direction of starting a campaign of my own."

"Is that your intention?" the lawyer asked scornfully.

"Not at the moment," Martin assured him.

"Well, since we've gone so far," Sir Frederick remarked, "and I am beginning to remember the details of the case to which you refer, ask me your questions and have done with it. I have an appointment at the House of Commons in half an hour. Still, since you are here, if you have anything to ask which deserves an answer, ask it."

"I shall do my best not to detain you," Martin promised. "My first question is this—how did you persuade Richard Lebur to change his plea?"

The lawyer sat for a moment as though thunderstruck. He made no reply. He stared at his visitor, his eyes seemed to have narrowed, certainly the pallor of his cheeks had become a shade more ghastly.

"What do you mean—change his plea?" he asked at last. "Richard Lebur knew that he would be found guilty, the evidence was utterly and entirely convincing. Under those circumstances, the accused man sometimes gets a word or two of hope, a little consideration from the judge if he pleads guilty."

"But was that your reason?"

"It might have been," was the terse reply. "But how do you know that the suggestion that the prisoner should change his plea came from me? The statement itself is false."

"The statement is true and it requires an answer," Martin declared. "Did you induce him to plead guilty with the hope of getting a lighter sentence?"

Black lightning flashed from Sir Frederick's angry eyes.

"I did not interfere with his own decision. He sent for me one morning just before the end and told me that he had decided to plead guilty. As a matter of fact, I was against it. I tried to persuade him to change his mind—he refused."

"May I ask you," Martin persisted, "whether he gave you any reason for his decision?"

"You may ask me," the lawyer replied, "but it was part of a privileged conversation between a man about to be tried for his life and his lawyer. Therefore, I shall not answer you."

"I am inclined to doubt," Martin said, "whether the question of privilege would apply in such a matter as this. At any rate—"

"Well?"

"I do not accept it."

The lawyer's thin, talon-like fingers played for a few moments with the paper-weight in front of him. He set it down with a little jerk.

"You have announced your purpose in coming, Mr.—shall I say Martin—as being to ask me a few senseless questions about a case long since dealt with. I have humoured you to the extent of listening to your first one. I have no answer to give you because no answer is possible. I did not advise my client to change his plea of 'guilty' in the case to which you are referring."

His fingers were busy again, this time they nearly reached the bell-push upon his desk, but Martin intervened.

"One moment, sir," he begged. "The first, and the vital one, of my questions you refuse to answer. Very well, I may possibly accept your plea as regards that, if you answer the second one to my satisfaction. Will you tell me, sir," Martin concluded, "when was the occasion, and at what hour in the day did you yourself see the murdered man?"

The lawyer's surprise this time was unmistakable. He sat with his mouth slightly open, gazing across the table.

"Did I understand you rightly?" he asked. "You want me to tell you the last occasion upon which I saw the murdered man?"

"Precisely," Martin answered with composure. "It is not such an extraordinary question after all, considering you were both members of the same club."

"The only extraordinary part of the whole affair," Sir Frederick declared severely, "is that I am sitting here, listening to you daring to come here and ask me questions which are none of your business."

He leaned over and stabbed at the bell.

"They will show you out now, sir, and I have only one request to make, and that is that you do not set your foot once more in my offices or presume to address me in any way. Jenkins," he went on, motioning to the attendant who had entered the room, "show this person out. Remember, if you please, that he is an unwelcome visitor and see that he is not allowed access to my presence again."

Martin accepted his stick and gloves from the man. He turned and smiled at the lawyer.

"I think perhaps, Sir Frederick," he admitted, "that yours was the best line to take. Yes," he added, as he turned away, "I think if I had been in your position it is the line I should have taken myself."

The lawyer made no reply. He had drawn a sheet of paper towards him and had commenced to write a letter. He did not even vouchsafe an upward glance as his visitor left the room.