The Envelope

   As a lawyer, I am sometimes asked which has been the most interesting case I have handled. The one that almost always comes to mind is one I call ‘The Envelope’. I like to tell about it by stating at the outset that it gave me no pleasure to open the envelope, for I knew as clearly as the day, seventeen years ago, what the note inside had said.

   It had all begun when I attended an investment seminar given by an internationally renowned figure in the world of finance.

   By way of introduction he had asked us all to turn round, look out the back window and locate the mansion standing atop a small hill with a commanding view of the ocean. When we had done so, and turned back to face the speaker, he announced, “I bought that house yesterday.”

   After allowing those words to sink in, he turned to the person at the end of the front row to his left and asked her to whom she made out her first check at the end of the month when payments had to be made. He proceeded to ask everyone in the front row the same question. Answers included the landlord, the mortgage company, “my wife”, and so on. When all had responded, the speaker said the first check he wrote out at the end of each month was to himself, adding, “That is how I came to buy that mansion yesterday and why you are here today.”

   He then addressed the occupants of the second row, asking each of them in turn how many business suits they had. The largest number was five. He said, “I have thirty-one, so that I can travel the world conducting seminars such as this for a whole month without having to worry about my wardrobe.”

   Next it was the turn of the third row, the subject, the number of neckties each possessed. Quite a few respondents didn’t know, but none approached the hundred the speaker said he possessed, “so that I can make allowances for cultural differences in the course of my world travels”.

   The presentation continued in like vein for what seemed to me to be an inordinate length of time. Eventually, the speaker asked if anyone in the audience had any questions for him. When it looked as if no one would answer, I stood up, surrounded by the well-annotated books and files I had taken out of my briefcase, hoping I looked every inch a credit to my profession.

   Picking up and opening one of my files as if to start a formal interrogation, I asked the speaker, “How many times have you been divorced?”

   “Why, three, if that’s of any relevance at all”, came the reply.

   “How many children and stepchildren do you have?” I asked next.

   “Three of each actually, but what’s that to you?” retorted the speaker, clearly put out by my questions.

   “Is it the case you’ve lived alone these past three years?” I continued.

   “Yes, but where precisely are you going with your highly personal questions?” demanded the speaker.

   “I wanted you to compare what you obviously see as great success when measured in terms of real estate, business suits and neckties, with the number of homes you’ve broken, lives you’ve ruined and children you can no longer call your own.” I had clearly touched a nerve as the speaker’s self-assurance crumbled before us.

   “One last question – perhaps,” I said, reaching down into my briefcase and withdrawing a sheaf of newspapers which I then held conspicuously in front of me for all to see. “Do you have the funds with which to mount a vigorous defense against the accusations of fraud reported throughout today’s foreign press?”

   The speaker slumped down into his chair, nearly missing it altogether in his haste to be seated.

   After a moment or two’s silence, I made my way to the front of the audience and told them the real reason for my being at the seminar today.

   As a lawyer and accomplished investor, I had followed the speaker’s career with unusual interest, knowing full well the accusations that had been made against him overseas. Had he of made a clean breast of things today, I might well have kept quiet. When it became obvious he was not going to do so, I felt compelled to let everyone know, sooner rather than later, at what cost the speaker had amassed his fortune and that, in so doing, he had developed a darker side to his nature than was generally known. In the event, everyone left the seminar once the organizers had promised a full refund to all paying participants.

   A week later, my secretary asked if I would take a call from ‘the speaker at the seminar you went to last week’. Instantly aware, I replied I most certainly would. My caller identified himself as Charles and asked if I would mount a vigorous defense against the accusations of fraud that had since been brought against him. We agreed to meet the following afternoon.

   I asked Charles to go over his entire investment career, omitting no detail however small. By the end, it was hard even for me to determine whether he was motivated by greed or malicious intent to deprive others of their funds. I mentioned this to Charles. He said that was one of the reasons he had approached me: to make the best possible case out of his particular circumstances. He also said I would most certainly know more than anyone else about his case: how it was to be presented was up to me.

   I told Charles that, if I were to take the case, he would have to accept the fact that my belief system was the very opposite of his. Where he believed in divorce, I believed that those whom God had brought together no one should separate. Where he appeared to have scant regard for his children, I acknowledged that children were the pride of their fathers and grandchildren the crown of their father’s old age. Where Charles had constantly striven for more and more, I knew what it was to be content in every situation. Where he had had even less regard for the feelings of others, I believed that you should treat people as you would wish them to treat you. And so I continued, while Charles appeared to listen attentively. When I had finished, he said he saw no problem with our respective differences, given that our relationship would be that of lawyer and client.

   I asked Charles if he had the funds to repay in full with interest, all those whom it was claimed he had defrauded. Having seen the press reports, he stated without hesitation that he did. I said therein lay the grounds for a possible defense. While a jury was always likely to be predisposed towards the underdog, they could be expected to be at least somewhat favorably disposed towards a defendant if restitution was to be made in full. At this observation Charles brightened considerably.

   I warned Charles he would have to declare his assets in full without holding even the smallest amount back. To reinforce my point, I told him the biblical story of the husband and wife who had both died where they stood when they had lied in saying the amounts they had brought to certain apostles were all they had to declare. In Charles’ case, death would instead be a long prison sentence. I could see the prospect of prison was anathema to him. He readily agreed to make a full disclosure of all his assets. I got the impression they were considerably greater than the sums he was alleged to owe.

   On Charles’ repeated assurances that our differing belief systems would not jepodize our professional relationship and that he would disclose his assets in full, I agreed to take on his case. It was then I wrote a note to myself and placed it in a sealed envelope with my case notes.

   As I was nearing the end of my closing argument at Charles’ trial, the body language of the jury suggesting we had a good case to answer, the door behind the judge opened slowly and quietly to admit four law enforcement officers, three in uniform. On a nod from the bench to the bailiff, the uniformed officers circled the courtroom and took up their places on either side of and behind Charles; as he was seated at a table, he was thus prevented from moving in any direction.

   On a second nod from the judge, the plain-clothes officer went to the bailiff and handed him a single sheet of paper which the bailiff then presented to the judge.

   After reading the paper, the judge ordered that Charles be remanded in the custody of the uniformed officers; that both counsel meet the judge in his chambers immediately, and that the case be adjourned until 10 o’clock the following morning.

   On entering the judge’s chambers, both counsel were handed a copy of the paper. It was a letter from the state attorney general confirming receipt of information relating to previously undisclosed bank accounts overseas that Charles had tried to hide. He was subsequently sentenced to twenty-five years in prison and died seventeen years later.

   It was when I received news of his death and had opened my file to record it that I saw the envelope. The note I had written inside was a direct quote from the Bible. It read, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the gates of heaven.” It gave me no pleasure to open the envelope.

For further reading: Matthew 19:3-6; Proverbs 17:6; Philippians 4:11; Luke 6:31; Acts 5:1-10; Matthew 19:24