“I like to talk to lawyers,” he said, “especially young ones just starting out, before the bloom is worn off. What’ll you have?”
He was just a middle-aged man at a bar, possibly a bore, but I felt like talking. I accepted the drink he offered and studied him. Not tight, I decided, just convivial. Well-dressed in a casual, easy way. Wide, rather than stout, with so little neck that his head seemed to rest on his shoulders. A small beak of a nose punctuated the round featureless face. His eyes were large and round and stared through things. I felt he was looking into me, not at me. He reminds me, I thought, of an owl.
“What’s your line?” I asked.
He grinned, and I immediately thought of a cat with feathers, a kind of cat-owl, a new species. That was the effect he had on me, and I had had only two drinks.
“That’s a lawyer for you,” he said. “Begins by asking for information. Never offers any. I own property. I have investments. I live on the results of the intelligent handling of money, my own and other peoples. I’m as honest as I need to be. Sometimes I’m as honest as I can afford to be. The important thing about me is that I’m not a man who insists on doing everything himself. That’s the way to an early grave. It’s amazing the number of people in this world who are willing to pull other people’s chestnuts out of the fire. I have learned to let them do it.”
He took a long pull at his drink and set down his glass. “I’ve just made you a present of one of the secrets of success. You ought to be grateful. I learned it the hard way.”
“Wrong pupil,” I said. “A lawyer is a professional chestnut puller. That’s what we’re paid for.”
“Ah yes.” He frowned, as if I had disturbed his train of thought. “Always tell the truth to your lawyer! Excellent maxim. I always did. I know the law,” he added, “as only a man can who has been in its clutches.”
I began to think the conversation was a mistake. A man who has lost a case has a perpetual grudge against all lawyers. He is usually long-winded too. But I was drinking his liquor, so I thought it just as well to give him the opening he was going to take anyway. “Perhaps your lawyer wasn’t to blame. After all…”
“To blame? Heavens no, of course he wasn’t to blame. He was excellent. And he has reason to be eternally grateful to me. It isn’t often a man has a client acquitted on a murder charge.”
My spirits rose. There was something vaguely reminiscent of the opening of an O. Henry story in his approach. I realized that he was steering the conversation skillfully. Smiling, I took the bait. “You were tried for murder?”
He nodded. “And remember,” he said with sly gratification, “that no matter what people think, I can never be tried for that murder again.”
There was something about the way he said it that shook me. The thought of fantasy had been my own, not his. He was telling me the truth. Cat or owl, one thing I knew, this man was no red herring. I realized with dismay that his manner of speaking one sentence had made me believe he was a murderer.
“Knowing that,” he went on, “you can hear what I say without fear. I am an innocent man. My acquittal was the official proclamation of my innocence. Let’s sit down in the booth over there and I’ll tell you about it.”
He called the bartender for two more, and I followed him to the booth.
“The man for whose murder I was tried,” he said, “was a thief, a liar, a corrupter of weaker souls, a despoiler, and a destroyer. Morally (what a strange word that is) he was a murderer. Two people killed themselves because of him. He deserved to die. The world was better off when he was no longer in it.
“I was not the only one who would have liked to see him dead. Unfortunately, they were all cowards. Chet turned his brother. George, into a servile panderer. Poor George, how he hated the man who had made him the weakling he was. First Chet broke up his brother’s marriage, then he defrauded him, then he made him a party to his crimes. George was what he was, there was no way out for him, but there was for me.
“As many careful businessmen do, I had placed a good deal of property in my wife’s name. Linda was a pretty, rather shallow little thing, but I loved her. I made the foolish mistake of working too hard; I was too busy to give Linda the attention she needed. I was happy when she found amusing friends and stopped complaining. The situation was made to order for Chet Marlow. He seduced her. I don’t think it took much trouble; she was romantic and easily impressed. Then he persuaded her that she could make a fortune with the money I had placed in her name. It was so easy. Of course he manipulated things so that her loss was always his gain. The money changed hands so smoothly, she was hardly aware of it.
“When I found out, I lost my head. I said all the things that a man says to a woman at such a moment. And then, I am ashamed to say, I struck her.
“She left me to go to Chet. But first she made a proud little speech telling me exactly where I had failed her. It was a very good speech, the best one she had ever made. I couldn’t help feeling proud of her.
“Her love for Chet and her pathetic dignity carried her all the way to his door. But the door was firmly closed in her face. Chet was no longer interested; he had other ideas. She drowned herself.
“The manner of her death distressed me deeply. She had always been afraid of deep water.
“As for George’s wife, she drove her car off a cliff. But that murder was different. Chet had not seduced her. She was too plain for his tastes. But he got George, who as I have said was a pretty weak character, involved with a cheap, flashy, succulent woman. Then Chet told George’s wife about it, and convinced her that George was through with her.
“You can say this for Chet, he was worth murdering. Iago was a blundering fool compared to him. There were others, but as your time is limited, I will ask you to take my word for the fact that Chet was a vicious, destructive man.
“When I buried my poor wife, I decided that Chet had to die. I followed him. I threatened him. I wrote to him, listing his crimes and predicting his death. I wanted to frighten him. I succeeded too well.
“One day I received a communication from him warning me that he had deposited with his lawyer one of those protective letters marked, ‘To be opened in the event of my death.’ From that moment I knew that anything that happened to Chet would be fully investigated. Murder would out. And Chet had been careful to say that he had named me as his future murderer.
“At first, this depressed me. It seemed he had protected himself forever from my justice, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. For a time, I’m afraid I became a drunken bore, talking more than I should, announcing in every bar and night club that Chet was a coward and deserved to die. It was an impotent performance, one that still fills me with shame when I remember it.
“Then one night I decided I had had enough of that sort of thing. I swore rather loudly that I would drink from then on in the privacy of my room.
“It was at this time that I left town on a carefully planned vacation, for I needed a change badly. I told no one I was leaving, or where I was going. I was sick of them all. What did it matter to me if they thought I was swilling whiskey alone in frustrated self-pity?
“The night before I left town, I went for a last fling to the worst nightclub I knew. George was there, poor fellow. George was always there. He offered me his flabby sympathy, and I drank with him, for though I despised George, I had nothing against him. It was not his fault he had become what he was.
“A week later, Chet was murdered. I heard about it over the radio and returned to the city. I had hardly had time to wash and change before the police came. I learned that Chet’s body had been found in a lonely little park near the city limits. He had been stabbed in the back. No weapon was found. The letter Chet had deposited with his lawyer accusing me had been immediately given to the representatives of law and order. And there they were to question me in all their magnificent efficiency.
“They said I had lured Chet to the place of his death with some clever story, that he had gotten out of the car to walk to the rendezvous, and that I had killed him.
“I said I had done nothing of the kind. I did not volunteer any information, and I refused to answer when they asked where I had been at the time of the murder. I was perfectly within my rights, as you know. The burden of the proof was on them.
“Even when they produced the lighter, I said little. It had been found near the body, and since it had my initials on it, I admitted it was mine. It was Linda’s first present to me. I carried it as a talisman only, for efficient use I prefer matches. I said that I had lost it at least a week before.
“They arrested me and brought me to trial. Naturally I was acquitted. It was a simple matter of an unbreakable alibi. You must admit that mine was absolutely ironclad. My vacation had been spent at a small beach resort about three hours’ drive from the city. I had been staying with friends. At every hour of the day, I was in the company of honorable, respectable people. Their testimony could not be shaken. Even at night I had not been alone. I had refused the privacy of the guest room in order to share the cooler, screened-in sleeping porch with their son, an ex-marine, who slept lightly, and was awake if I so much as went for a drink of water. The most clever cross-examination could not shake these people. I had never been alone for more than a few minutes at any time. This was supported by neighbors and friends who had seen me around the house, sunning myself on the lawn or with the family at the beach.
“The efforts to point out that this itself was a suspicious circumstance fell flat. My friends stoutly maintained that I had confessed I feared I was becoming an alcoholic and had asked them to watch me and give me no chance to sneak off by myself.
“They had to acquit me. Since then I have been at peace with myself. I am free. I am innocent. And I have the gratifying knowledge that Chet Marlow has paid for his crimes.”
I stared at my companion. But he only smiled and ordered another round.
“Well?” I said.
“Well what?” The repulsive creature was playing with me, enjoying himself.
I took a deep breath. “You said yourself that you cannot be tried again, so you may as well tell me the rest. How did you do it? How did you deceive the people who gave you your alibi? Or did they…?”
He reproved me with pursed lips. “They’re honest people. They told the truth.”
“Then how was it worked? How did you kill him?”
He shook his head sadly, as if I had disappointed him. “I thought a clever young lawyer like you…
“Chet signed his own death warrant when he so cleverly left that document pointing to me. It was then that I knew he would be killed. That’s why I left town, and was very careful to be in the company of the right people the whole time. But the night before I left, I made very sure that George knew about that letter and I was very careless with my lighter. It slipped out of my pocket onto the seat beside him. George was a coward; he wouldn’t take a risk. But he couldn’t resist a sure thing. And George, you must remember, hated Chet as much as I did.”
“But...” I began, and then fell silent.
“You are wondering, are you not,” he said, “how much guilt I have to bear? None, let me tell you, none. I acted on my knowledge of George and I protected myself, that is all.”
“And what about George?” I asked. “What happened to him?”
“George was a fool,” he said irritably. “When I was acquitted, he shot himself. He may possibly have thought they could trace the lighter to him, but that was ridiculous. He had only to keep quiet. But in that there was also a kind of justice. He had, after all, been a partner, albeit unwillingly, in his brother’s crimes.”
We sat some time in silence. I wanted to get up and go, but I couldn’t think of a line that would get me out.
The man’s round eyes held mine, while his face seemed to blur and disintegrate.
Suddenly he rose. “Let me save you the embarrassment,” he said sadly. “It’s time I was going. It’s strange, isn’t it, how people always draw back from me even when I tell them the true story? Even the friends who gave me my alibi are not quite sure. I am at peace with myself, but sometimes I am a very lonely man.”
“But why?” I said. “Why tell anyone? You must meet many people who don’t know. Why do you tell them?”
He drew himself up. “I’m innocent. Why shouldn’t I?” His lips twisted oddly. “Besides, it’s the one interesting thing about me. The only thing.”
AUTHOR’S POSTSCRIPT: Just a glimpse of two men in a bar started it, one buying the drinks and talking, the other listening, and certainly not feeling comfortable about what he heard. Then I remembered the Ancient Mariner. The glittering eye. What I wanted was the trapped, reluctant but fascinated listener—and the equally-trapped, compulsive talker whose world has shrunk to the one story he must tell and tell again. A quiet, self-made hell that never ends.