Tutt and Mr. Tutt - Arthur Train
TUTT AND MR. TUTT
By Arthur Train
1919
CONTENTS
THE HUMAN ELEMENT
MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE
SAMUEL AND DELILAH
THE DOG ANDREW
WILE _Versus_ GUILE
HEPPLEWHITE TRAMP
LALLAPALOOSA LIMITED
The Human Element
Although men flatter themselves with their great actions,
they are not so often the result of great design as of chance.
--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
"He says he killed him, and that's all there is about it!" said Tutt to
Mr. Tutt. "What are you going to do with a fellow like that?" The junior
partner of the celebrated firm of Tutt & Tutt, attorneys and counselors
at law, thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his yellow checked
breeches and, balancing himself upon the heels of his patent-leather
boots, gazed in a distressed, respectfully inquiring manner at his
distinguished associate.
"Yes," he repeated plaintively. "He don't make any bones about it at
all. 'Sure, I killed him!' says he. 'And I'd kill him again, the ----!'
I prefer not to quote his exact language. I've just come from the Tombs
and had quite a talk with Serafino in the counsel room, with a
gum-chewing keeper sitting in the corner watching me for fear I'd slip
his prisoner a saw file or a shotgun or a barrel of poison. I'm all in!
These murder cases drive me to drink, Mr. Tutt. I don't mind grand
larceny, forgery, assault or even manslaughter--but murder gets my goat!
And when you have a crazy Italian for a client who says he's glad he did
it and would like to do it again--please excuse me! It isn't law; it's
suicide!"
He drew out a silk handkerchief ornamented with the colors of the
Allies, and wiped his forehead despairingly.
"Oh," remarked Mr. Tutt with entire good nature. "He's glad he did it
and he's quite willing to be hanged!"
"That's it in a nutshell!" replied Tutt.
The senior partner of Tutt & Tutt ran his bony fingers through the lank
gray locks over his left eye and tilted ceilingward the stogy between
his thin lips. Then he leaned back in his antique swivel chair, locked
his hands behind his head, elevated his long legs luxuriously, and
crossed his feet upon the fourth volume of the American and English
Encyclopedia of Law, which lay open upon the desk at Champerty and
Maintenance. Even in this inelegant and relaxed posture he somehow
managed to maintain the air of picturesque dignity which always made his
tall, ungainly figure noticeable in any courtroom. Indubitably Mr.
Ephraim Tutt suggested a past generation, the suggestion being
accentuated by a slight pedantry of diction a trifle out of character
with the rushing age in which he saw fit to practise his time-honored
profession. "Cheer up, Tutt," said he, pushing a box of stogies toward
his partner with the toe of his congress boot. "Have a weed?"
Since in the office of Tutt & Tutt such an invitation like those of
royalty, was equivalent to a command, Tutt acquiesced.
"Thank you, Mr. Tutt," said Tutt, looking about vaguely for a match.
"That conscienceless brat of a Willie steals 'em all," growled Mr. Tutt.
"Ring the bell."
Tutt obeyed. He was a short, brisk little man with a pronounced
abdominal convexity, and he maintained toward his superior, though but a
few years his junior, a mingled attitude of awe, admiration and
affection such as a dickey bird might adopt toward a distinguished owl.
This attitude was shared by the entire office force. Inside the ground
glass of the outer door Ephraim Tutt was king. To Tutt the opinion of
Mr. Tutt upon any subject whatsoever was law, even if the courts might
have held to the contrary. To Tutt he was the eternal fount of wisdom,
culture and morality. Yet until Mr. Tutt finally elucidated his views
Tutt did not hesitate to hold conditional if temporary opinions of his
own. Briefly their relations were symbolized by the circumstance that
while Tutt always addressed his senior partner as "Mr. Tutt," the latter
accosted him simply as "Tutt." In a word there was only one Mr. Tutt in
the firm of Tutt & Tutt.
But so far as that went there was only one Tutt. On the theory that a
lily cannot be painted, the estate of one seemingly was as dignified as
that of the other. At any rate there never was and never had been any
confusion or ambiguity arising out of the matter since the day, twenty
years before, when Tutt had visited Mr. Tutt's law office in search of
employment. Mr. Tutt was just rising into fame as a police-court lawyer.
Tutt had only recently been admitted to the bar, having abandoned his
native city of Bangor, Maine, for the metropolis.
"And may I ask why you should come to me?" Mr. Tutt had demanded
severely from behind the stogy, which even at that early date had been
as much a part of his facial anatomy as his long ruminative nose. "Why
the devil should you come to me? I am nobody, sir--nobody! In this great
city certainly there are thousands far more qualified than I to further
your professional and financial advancement."
"Because," answered the inspired Tutt with modesty, "I feel that with
you I should be associated with a good name."
That had settled the matter. They bore no relationship to one another,
but they were the only Tutts in the city and there seemed to be a
certain propriety in their hanging together. Neither had regretted it
for a moment, and as the years passed they became indispensable to each
other. They were the necessary component parts of a harmonious legal
whole. Mr. Tutt was the brains and the voice, while Tutt was the eyes
and legs of a combination that at intervals--rare ones, it must be
confessed--made the law tremble, sometimes in fear and more often with
joy.
At first, speaking figuratively, Tutt merely carried Mr. Tutt's
bag--rode on his coat tails, as it were; but as time went on his
activity, ingenuity and industry made him indispensable and led to a
junior partnership. Tutt prepared the cases for Mr. Tutt to try. Both
were well versed in the law if they were not profound lawyers, but as
the origin of the firm was humble, their practise was of a miscellaneous
character.
"Never turn down a case," was Tutt's motto.
"Our duty as sworn officers of the judicial branch of the Government
renders it incumbent upon us to perform whatever services our clients'
exigencies demand," was Mr. Tutt's way of putting it.
In the end it amounted to exactly the same thing. As a result, in
addition to their own clientele, other members of the bar who found
themselves encumbered with matters which for one reason or another they
preferred not to handle formed the habit of turning them over to Tutt &
Tutt. A never-ending stream of peculiar cases flowed through the office,
each leaving behind it some residuum of golden dust, however small. The
stately or, as an unkind observer might have put it, the ramshackly form
of the senior partner was a constant figure in all the courts, from that
of the coroner on the one hand to the appellate tribunals upon the
other. It was immaterial to him what the case was about--whether it
dealt with the "next eventual estate" or the damages for a dog bite--so
long as he was paid and Tutt prepared it. Hence Tutt & Tutt prospered.
And as the law, like any other profession requires jacks-of-all-trades,
the firm acquired a certain peculiar professional standing of its own,
and enjoyed the good will of the bar as a whole.
They had the reputation of being sound lawyers if not overafflicted with
a sense of professional dignity, whose word was better than their bond,
yet who, faithful to their clients' interests knew no mercy and gave no
quarter. They took and pressed cases which other lawyers dared not touch
lest they should be defiled--and nobody seemed to think any the less of
them for so doing. They raised points that made the refinements of the
ancient schoolmen seem blunt in comparison. No respecters of persons,
they harried the rich and taunted the powerful, and would have as soon
jailed a bishop or a judge as a pickpocket if he deserved it. Between
them they knew more kinds of law than most of their professional
brethren, and as Mr. Tutt was a bookworm and a seeker after legal and
other lore their dusty old library was full of hidden treasures, which
on frequent occasions were unearthed to entertain the jury or delight
the bench. They were loyal friends, fearsome enemies, high chargers, and
maintained their unique position in spite of the fact that at one time
or another they had run close to the shadowy line which divides the
ethical from that which is not. Yet Mr. Tutt had brought disbarment
proceedings against many lawyers in his time and--what is more--had them
disbarred.
"Leave old Tutt alone," was held sage advice, and when other lawyers
desired to entertain the judiciary they were apt to invite Mr. Tutt to
be of the party. And Tutt gloried in the glories of Mr. Tutt.
"That's it!" repeated Tutt as he lit his stogy, which flared up like a
burning bush, the cub of a Willie having foraged successfully in the
outer office for a match. "He's willing to be hanged or damned or
anything else just for the sake of putting a bullet through the other
fellow!"
"What was the name of the unfortunate deceased?"
"Tomasso Crocedoro--a barber."
"That is almost a defense in itself," mused Mr. Tutt. "Anyhow, if I've
got to defend Angelo for shooting Tomasso you might as well give me a
short scenario of the melodrama. By the way, are we retained or assigned
by the court?"
"Assigned," chirped Tutt.
"So that all we'll get out of it is about enough to keep me in stogies
for a couple of months!"
"And--if he's convicted, as of course he will be--a good chance of
losing our reputation as successful trial counsel. Why not beg off?"
"Let me hear the story first," answered Mr. Tutt. "Angelo sounds like a
good sport. I have a mild affection for him already."
He reached into the lower compartment of his desk and lifted out a
tumbler and a bottle of malt extract, which he placed carefully at his
elbow. Then he leaned back again expectantly.
"It is a simple and naive story," began Tutt, seating himself in the
chair reserved for paying clients--that is to say, one which did not
have the two front legs sawed off an inch or so in order to make
lingering uncomfortable. "A plain, unvarnished tale. Our client is one
who makes an honest living by blacking shoes near the entrance to the
Brooklyn Bridge. He is one of several hundred original Tonys who conduct
shoe-shining emporiums."
"Emporia," corrected his partner, pouring out a tumbler of malt extract.
"He formed an attachment for a certain young lady," went on Tutt,
undisturbed, "who had previously had some sort of love affair with
Crocedoro, as a result of which her social standing had become slightly
impaired. In a word Tomasso jilted her. Angelo saw, pitied and loved
her, took her for better or for worse, and married her."
"For which," interjected Mr. Tutt, "he is entitled to everyone's
respect."
"Quite so!" agreed Tutt. "Now Tomasso, though not willing to marry the
girl himself, seems to have resented the idea of having anyone else do
so, and accordingly seized every opportunity which presented itself to
twit Angelo about the matter."
"Dog in the manger, so to speak," nodded Mr. Tutt.
"He not only jeered at Angelo for marrying Rosalina but he began to
hang about his discarded mistress again and scoff at her choice of a
husband. But Rosalina gave him the cold shoulder, with the result that
he became more and more insulting to Angelo. Finally one day our client
made up his mind not to stand it any longer, secured a revolver, sought
out Tomasso in his barber shop and put a bullet through his head. Now
however much you may sympathize with Angelo as a man and a husband there
isn't the slightest doubt that he killed Tomasso with every kind of
deliberation and premeditation."
"If the case is as you say," replied Mr. Tutt, replacing the bottle and
tumbler within the lower drawer and flicking a stogy ash from his
waistcoat, "the honorable justice who handed it to us is no friend of
ours."
"He isn't," assented his partner. "It was Babson and he hates Italians.
Moreover, he stated in open court that he proposed to try the case
himself next Monday and that we must be ready without fail."
"So Babson did that to us!" growled Mr. Tutt. "Just like him. He'll pack
the jury and charge our innocent Angelo into the middle of hades."
"And O'Brien is the assistant district attorney in charge of the
prosecution," mildly added Tutt. "But what can we do? We're assigned,
we've got a guilty client, and we've got to defend him."
"Have you set Bonnie Doon looking up witnesses?" asked Mr. Tutt. "I
thought I saw him outside during the forenoon."
"Yes," replied Tutt. "But Bonnie says it's the toughest case he ever had
to handle in which to find any witnesses for the defense. There aren't
any. Besides, the girl bought the gun and gave it to Angelo the same
day."
"How do you know that?" demanded Mr. Tutt, frowning.
"Because she told me so herself," said Tutt. "She's outside if you want
to see her."
"I might as well give her what you call 'the once over,'" replied the
senior partner.
Tutt retired and presently returned half leading, half pushing a
shrinking young Italian woman, shabbily dressed but with the features of
one of Raphael's madonnas. She wore no hat and her hands and finger
nails were far from clean, but from the folds of her black shawl her
neck rose like a column of slightly discolored Carrara marble, upon
which her head with its coils of heavy hair was poised with the grace of
a sulky empress.
"Come in, my child, and sit down," said Mr. Tutt kindly. "No, not in
that one; in that one." He indicated the chair previously occupied by
his junior. "You can leave us, Tutt. I want to talk to this young lady
alone."
The girl sat sullenly with averted face, showing in her attitude her
instinctive feeling that all officers of the law, no matter upon which
side they were supposed to be, were one and all engaged in a mysterious
conspiracy of which she and her unfortunate Angelo were the victims. A
few words from the old lawyer and she began to feel more confidence,
however. No one, in fact, could help but realize at first glance Mr.
Tutt's warmth of heart. The lines of his sunken cheeks if left to
themselves automatically tended to draw together into a whimsical smile,
and it required a positive act of will upon his part to adopt the stern
and relentless look with which he was wont to glower down upon some
unfortunate witness in cross-examination.
Inside Mr. Tutt was a benign and rather mellow old fellow, with a dry
sense of humor and a very keen knowledge of his fellow men. He made a
good deal of money, but not having any wife or child upon which to
lavish it he spent it all either on books or surreptitiously in quixotic
gifts to friends or strangers whom he either secretly admired or whom he
believed to be in need of money. There were vague traditions in the
office of presents of bizarre and quite impossible clothes made to
office boys and stenographers; of ex-convicts reoutfitted and sent
rejoicing to foreign parts; of tramps gorged to repletion and then
pumped dry of their adventures in Mr. Tutt's comfortable, dingy old
library; of a fur coat suddenly clapped upon the rounded shoulders of
old Scraggs, the antiquated scrivener in the accountant's cage in the
outer office, whose alcoholic career, his employer alleged, was marked
by a trail of empty rum kegs, each one flying the white flag of
surrender.
And yet old Ephraim Tutt could on occasion be cold as chiseled steel,
and as hard. Any appeal from a child, a woman or an outcast always met
with his ready response; but for the rich, successful and those in power
he seemed to entertain a deep and enduring grudge. He would burn the
midnight oil with equal zest to block a crooked deal on the part of a
wealthy corporation or to devise a means to extricate some no less
crooked rascal from the clutches of the law, provided that the rascal
seemed the victim of hard luck, inheritance or environment. His
weather-beaten conscience was as elastic as his heart. Indeed when under
the expansive influence of a sufficient quantity of malt extract or
ancient brandy from the cellaret on his library desk he had sometimes
been heard to enunciate the theory that there was very little difference
between the people in jail and those who were not.
He would work weeks without compensation to argue the case of some
guilty rogue before the Court of Appeals, in order, as he said, to
"settle the law," when his only real object was to get the miserable
fellow out of jail and send him back to his wife and children. He went
through life with a twinkling eye and a quizzical smile, and when he did
wrong he did it--if such a thing is possible--in a way to make people
better. He was a dangerous adversary and judges were afraid of him, not
because he ever tricked or deceived them but because of the audacity and
novelty of his arguments which left them speechless. He had the
assurance that usually comes with age and with a lifelong knowledge of
human nature, yet apparently he had always been possessed of it.
Once a judge having assigned him to look out for the interests of a
lawyerless prisoner suggested that he take his new client into the
adjoining jury room and give him the best advice he could. Mr. Tutt was
gone so long that the judge became weary, and to find out what had
become of him sent an officer, who found the lawyer reading a newspaper
beside an open window, but no sign of the prisoner. In great excitement
the officer reported the situation to the judge, who ordered Mr. Tutt to
the bar.
"What has become of the prisoner?" demanded His Honor.
"I do not know," replied the lawyer calmly. "The window was open and I
suspect that he used it as a means of exit."
"Are you not aware that you are a party to an escape--a crime?" hotly
challenged the judge.
"I most respectfully deny the charge," returned Mr. Tutt.
"I told you to take the prisoner into that room and give him the best
advice you could."
"I did!" interjected the lawyer.
"Ah!" exclaimed the judge. "You admit it! What advice did you give him?"
"The law does not permit me to state that," answered Mr. Tutt in his
most dignified tones. "That is a privileged communication from the
inviolate obligation to preserve which only my client can release me--I
cannot betray a sacred trust. Yet I might quote Cervantes and remind
Your Honor that 'Fortune leaves always some door open to come at a
remedy!'"
Now as he gazed at the tear-stained cheeks of the girl-wife whose
husband had committed murder in defense of her self-respect, he vowed
that so far as he was able he would fight to save him. The more
desperate the case the more desperate her need of him--the greater the
duty and the greater his honor if successful.
"Believe that I am your friend, my dear!" he assured her. "You and I
must work together to set Angelo free."
"It's no use," she returned less defiantly. "He done it. He won't deny
it."
"But he is entitled to his defense," urged Mr. Tutt quietly.
"He won't make no defense."
"We must make one for him."
"There ain't none. He just went and killed him."
Mr. Tutt shrugged his shoulders.
"There is always a defense," he answered with conviction. "Anyhow we
can't let him be convicted without making an effort. Will they be able
to prove where he got the pistol?"
"He didn't get the pistol," retorted the girl with a glint in her black
eyes. "I got it. I'd ha' shot him myself if he hadn't. I said I was
goin' to, but he wouldn't let me."
"Dear, dear!" sighed Mr. Tutt. "What a case! Both of you trying to see
which could get hanged first!"
* * * * *
The inevitable day of Angelo's trial came. Upon the bench the Honorable
Mr. Justice Babson glowered down upon the cowering defendant flanked by
his distinguished counsel, Tutt & Tutt, and upon the two hundred good
and true talesmen who, "all other business laid aside," had been dragged
from the comfort of their homes and the important affairs of their
various livelihoods to pass upon the merits of the issue duly joined
between The People of the State of New York and Angelo Serafino,
charged with murder.
One by one as his name was called each took his seat in the witness
chair upon the _voir dire_ and perjured himself like a gentleman in
order to escape from service, shyly confessing to an ineradicable
prejudice against the entire Italian race and this defendant in
particular, and to an antipathy against capital punishment which, so
each unhesitatingly averred, would render him utterly incapable of
satisfactorily performing his functions if selected as a juryman. Hardly
one, however, but was routed by the Machiavellian Babson. Hardly one,
however ingenious his excuse--whether about to be married or immediately
become a father, whether engaged in a business deal involving millions
which required his instant and personal attention whether in the last
stages of illness or obligated to be present at the bedside of a dying
wife--but was browbeaten into helplessness and ordered back to take his
place amidst the waiting throng of recalcitrant citizens so disinclined
to do their part in elevating that system of trial by jury the failure
of which at other times they so loudly condemned.
This trifling preliminary having been concluded, the few jurymen who had
managed to wriggle through the judicial sieve were allowed to withdraw,
the balance of the calendar was adjourned, those spectators who were
standing up were ordered to sit down and those already sitting down were
ordered to sit somewhere else, the prisoners in the rear of the room
were sent back to the Tombs to await their fate upon some later day, the
reporters gathered rapaciously about the table just behind the
defendant, a corpulent Ganymede in the person of an aged court officer
bore tremblingly an opaque glass of yellow drinking water to the bench,
O'Brien the prosecutor blew his nose with a fanfare of trumpets, Mr.
Tutt smiled an ingratiating smile which seemed to clasp the whole world
to his bosom--and the real battle commenced; a game in which every card
in the pack had been stacked against the prisoner by an unscrupulous
pair of officials whose only aim was to maintain their record of
convictions of "murder in the first" and who laid their plans with
ingenuity and carried them out with skill and enthusiasm to habitual
success.
They were a grand little pair of convictors, were Babson and O'Brien,
and woe unto that man who was brought before them. It was even alleged
by the impious that when Babson was in doubt what to do or what O'Brien
wanted him to do the latter communicated the information to his
conspirator upon the bench by a system of preconcerted signals. But
indeed no such system was necessary, for the judge's part in the drama
was merely to sustain his colleague's objections and overrule those of
his opponent, after which he himself delivered the _coup de grace_ with
unerring insight and accuracy. When Babson got through charging a jury
the latter had always in fact been instructed in brutal and sneering
tones to convict the defendant or forever after to regard themselves as
disloyal citizens, oath violators and outcasts though the stenographic
record of his remarks would have led the reader thereof to suppose that
this same judge was a conscientious, tender-hearted merciful lover of
humanity, whose sensitive soul quivered at the mere thought of a prison
cell, and who meticulously sought to surround the defendant with every
protection the law could interpose against the imputation of guilt.
He was, as Tutt put it, "a dangerous old cuss." O'Brien was even worse.
He was a bull-necked, bullet-headed, pugnosed young ruffian with beery
eyes, who had an insatiable ambition and a still greater conceit, but
who had devised a blundering, innocent, helpless way of conducting
himself before a jury that deceived them into believing that his
inexperience required their help and his disinterestedness their loyal
support. Both of them were apparently fair-minded, honest public
servants; both in reality were subtly disingenuous to a degree beyond
ordinary comprehension, for years of practise had made them sensitive to
every whimsy of emotion and taught them how to play upon the psychology
of the jury as the careless zephyr softly draws its melody from the
aeolian harp. In a word they were a precious pair of crooks, who for
their own petty selfish ends played fast and loose with liberty, life
and death.
Both of them hated Mr. Tutt, who had more than once made them ridiculous
before the jury and shown them up before the Court of Appeals, and the
old lawyer recognized well the fact that these two legal wolves were in
revenge planning to tear him and his helpless client to pieces, having
first deliberately selected him as a victim and assigned him to
officiate at a ceremony which, however just so far as its consummation
might be concerned, was nothing less in its conduct than judicial
murder. Now they were laughing at him in their sleeves, for Mr. Tutt
enjoyed the reputation of never having defended a client who had been
convicted of murder, and that spotless reputation was about to be
annihilated forever.