‘End of story.’
‘Not quite.’ David Vynn smiled thinly. ‘The IRS had had Sandy Nutbridge arrested in the first place because of information laid against him by a so-called friend in whom he had unwisely confided. A lawyer friend who saw all sorts of ways to profit.’
Jules Harlow said, ‘Dear God.’
‘Quite.’ His attorney nodded. ‘Patrick Green got Sandy Nutbridge first jailed and then bailed and is, I’m told, now stoking things up to have Nutbridge back behind bars on a charge of selling cocaine, that is if he doesn’t pay Green something near another thirty thousand dollars for a fee. I have to say that in Green’s leech-like machinations, your ten thousand is chicken feed.’
Jules Harlow said blankly, ‘What can we do?’
‘There are two roads to go.’ David T. Vynn was cheerfuclass="underline" he liked a good fight. ‘You can sue him for the money in court, and you can complain to the South Carolina Bar Association in an effort to get him disqualified from practising law.’
‘Which do you suggest?’
‘Both.’
Hearing nothing from Jules Reginald Harlow for quite some time, Patrick Green told himself complacently that he’d been absolutely right, the pathetic little guy from England had discovered it would cost him too much to kick up a storm and had caved in without making trouble.
Patrick Green, approaching forty, had for many years scavenged on the fringes of the law, never achieving the recognition he thought his due. He dreamed of brilliantly defending successfully in major murder trials but more typically lost misdemeanour cases in county courts. Most of his work, by this stage in his unsatisfactory career, consisted of carrying out dishonest tasks for other dishonest lawyers. ‘Gifts’ like Sandy Nutbridge came along rarely.
It was a nasty shock for him when he received notice that Jules Harlow was suing him for conversion, civil theft and breach of constructive trust in the matter of his ten thousand dollars. He didn’t like it that an attorney, David T. Vynn, was requesting a deposition. The grey little Englishman, Green frowned, should have learned his lesson and cut his losses. He, Green, would make sure that the little man not only lost his case, but would be much the poorer for having brought it.
Patrick Green didn’t much fear the deposition itself: he would swear on oath to tell the truth and then lie from start to finish. He had done it many times. People tended to believe what was said in a deposition (a sworn statement of fact) because lying under oath constituted perjury punishable by imprisonment.
Patrick Green, skilful at misrepresentation and evasion, told believable lies for nearly two hours at his deposition, with an appearance throughout of sincerity and conviction.
Jules Reginald Harlow met his attorney David T. Vynn for breakfast in a hotel. David T. Vynn preferred dining-rooms to offices, first because no ‘bugs’ could be listening and second because he was permanently hungry.
Over cereal, eggs Benedict and bacon on the side he described Patrick Green at his deposition as ingratiating, smooth-eyed and plausible, and over strawberries, waffles and maple syrup he outlined Green’s reply to Harlow’s charges, which was that Jules Harlow on the telephone had told him — Green — to apply the ten thousand dollars to his — Green’s — fees. He — Green — couldn’t understand why Harlow should want to go back on the deal.
‘Green was attended at his deposition by the attorney acting in his defence,’ David Vynn said. ‘He gave his name as Carl Corunna. Is he the person who told you to make your cashier’s cheque payable to Green? Is he the one who received the cheque and gave you a receipt for it, and couriered it round to the court?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good.’
‘How is it good?’ Harlow asked.
‘Because I can get him disqualified as defendant’s counsel. Er...’ he explained, seeing Harlow’s mystification, ‘Carl Corunna is also a witness, right? If we go before a judge in his chambers — that’s just a room smaller than the whole court — I would hope to persuade him to make Green get himself a different attorney to defend him in court, and that will cost Mr Patrick Green a whole bucketful of his own cash, which I’m told he can’t afford, as he has already spent the thousands he stole.’
‘It seemed such a simple matter,’ Jules Harlow sighed, ‘to put up a bit of money towards a bail bond.’
‘Don’t despair.’
David Vynn ate warm English muffins spread with apple jelly and watched the slightly gloomy expression of his client change to radiant pleasure as they were joined by a vibrant woman who wore couture clothes as casually as overalls.
‘My wife,’ Harlow said, introducing her with pride. ‘She thinks I was crazy to listen to poor Mrs Nutbridge, and she’s fascinated by Patrick Green.’
‘It was for your wife,’ David Vynn asked, ‘that you bought the filly and met Sandy Nutbridge?’
Jules Harlow nodded. David Vynn looked from one to the other and thought Patrick Green hadn’t a hope of pinning drug-dealing sleaze onto people like this.
Even though the judge in chambers did agree with David Vynn that Patrick Green should engage a different counsel to defend him at trial, it was still Carl Corunna who acted for him when he demanded a deposition in his turn from Jules Reginald Harlow.
‘I’ll be sitting beside you,’ young David Vynn told his client, ‘but I’m not allowed to answer the questions. It will be you who does that. Remember that you’ll have sworn on oath to speak the truth. Think before you answer. They’ll be trying to trap you. Tricky questions. If they succeed in muddling you up, we’ll lose in court.’
So reassuring, Jules Harlow thought. He and David Vynn went to the office suite of Carl Corunna and in a boardroom there Jules Reginald Harlow came face to face with Patrick Green for the first time. He had expected perhaps to see deviousness, but Green’s success in the world was based on a plausibly persuasive exterior.
Green looked at Harlow as a fool throwing good money down the drain and didn’t in the least understand the mind of the man he was facing. In the context of the war-torn famine-racked world, Jules Harlow considered the disputed ownership of ten thousand dollars to be an irrelevance. Yet he still believed that justice mattered, whether on a huge or a tiny scale, and he would try to the end to prove it existed.
Apart from the four men sitting opposite each other in side-by-side pairs at one end of a long polished table — Corunna and Green opposite Harlow and Vynn — there was a woman court reporter who, on her swift typing machine, wrote down every word verbatim. There was also a video camera recording the proceedings, so that if necessary the spoken words could be synchronised with the video tape, to prove there had been no illegal editing.
Jules Harlow swore on oath to tell the truth, and did so. Carl Corunna tried to get him to admit he had agreed that, when the District Clerk returned the bail money, Green should keep it as part of his fee.
‘Absolutely not,’ Jules Harlow said.
‘You made the cashier’s cheque out personally to Mr Green, did you not?’
‘Yes, you told me to.’
‘Did you stipulate on the cheque that it was to be used for any particular purpose?’
‘You yourself knew that its purpose was to complete the bail bond so that Sandy Nutbridge could be freed to enjoy his family’s visit.’
‘Answer the question,’ Corunna instructed. ‘Did you stipulate on the cheque for what purpose it was to be used?’
‘Well... no.’
‘Did you stipulate on the cheque that you expected it to be returned to you?’
‘No,’ Harlow said. ‘And why,’ he added bitterly, ‘why didn’t you as a lawyer advise me to make out the cheque directly to the District Clerk? Ray Wichelsea did that, and had his money returned without trouble. You yourself told me to have the cheque made out to Patrick Green personally. If you knew that what I was doing on your instruction was inadvisable, why did you so instruct me?’