The Lacey confession l-2

by Richard Greener

  Elizabeth Harrison had worked for McHenry Brown since his Wall Street days twenty years ago. He trusted her completely and with total justification. When he was named Ambassador to England, a post once held by Joseph P. Kennedy, Mrs. Harrison convinced her husband, Norman, to have his advertising agency transfer him to their London office. He did and they moved to England. Some said she would have gone without him. She was devoted to McHenry Brown’s interest and protected his privacy with a zeal and competence other men in public life admired, envied and tried so hard to duplicate. Quite naturally she replied to Sir Anthony, “Of course, Sir Anthony, ten o’clock will be fine.” He gave her special directions to an open door at the side of the building in which Herndon, Sturgis, Wells amp; Nelson was the sole occupant, as well as the location of his office suite. It was, after all, he said, “a February Saturday and no staff would be present to show him in. I shall be the only one here.”

  “I’m sure the Ambassador will find you without difficulty,” she said.

  She said that to him knowing there would be no appearance by the Ambassador, that it would not be McHenry Brown who’d pay him a visit, and in the full knowledge Sir Anthony knew it too.

  After checking the morning duty roster, she called the ranking American official on the premises. “Harry,” she said, “can you come over to the Ambassador’s office right away? There’s something very important you need to do.” Harry Levine was no stranger to diplomatic speech. In that peculiar language, very important clearly meant it’s not important at all. Important alone, used by itself minus the adjective very, meant important. If something was indeed very important, it was referred to as vitally important. Should there be a potential for danger attached to the matter at hand, then it would be spoken of as gravely important. And if the danger was immediate, if the threat was clear and present, then it would be a matter of critical importance. Not only did Harry understand this, he knew Elizabeth Harrison did too.

  The table of organization at the Embassy, that long list of deputies, assistants, attaches and their assistants, plus all the other titles, each accompanied by their job descriptions-both the politicals as well as the Foreign Service people-listed her simply as an Administrative Assistant. No matter, Harry was certainly aware Elizabeth Harrison was the embassy’s de facto Chief of Staff. She spoke with the full weight of the Ambassador. Nowhere in the Foreign Service manuals was it written, or listed anywhere among the rules and regulations that govern diplomacy, but it was not at all unusual for the same circumstance to exist at other embassies, all over the world. Especially American ones. Powerful American men, private as well as public, had a habit of depending on and trusting in their female assistants. A French diplomat, perhaps more intimate with his mistress than his wife, once told Harry he suspected American men spent their entire lives looking for their mother, seeking her approval. “So, what’s wrong with that,” replied Harry, to which his French friend just laughed.

  Harry’s own place on that list was well down the chain of command. He was designated as Deputy Ambassador, Trade (Legal Section). Deputy Ambassador was a heady title only to those outside the loop. Harry Levine was one of two dozen such in London alone. His was not a political position. He was Foreign Service, a true representative of his country, not merely his government. His job was to provide the legal guidance necessary for American business and American businessmen to prosper in England. It was a technical post, one which mainly involved helping American interests operate within the framework of English law. A compatible legal heritage combined with a common language to help make this easy work. Despite its often-mundane aspects, he loved it as much as he loved England. He was smart enough to forego an ambition he had little of to begin with, together with career advancement he had no desire for, in exchange for a permanent place in London. He was a great success. He did a good job. American businessmen, prominent men in their fields, many with substantial political influence, liked him. When the time came, Harry was not timid about asking some of them to help him remain in his comfortable spot. After a few years he was safely immune from the fears and irregularities of Foreign Service rotation.

  Whatever Elizabeth Harrison had in mind for him, no matter how unimportant it might be, Harry was ready and willing. He was, Saturday joke or not, the senior man on the premises. It was what he was there for.

  “I’ll be right there,” he said.

  Harry took a cab instead of an embassy car to Herndon, Sturgis, Wells amp; Nelson. Usually, he walked wherever possible. He liked London better than any city in the world. It was a city for walkers. The safety and friendliness of its streets ranked high among the many reasons he preferred it to other capitals. It wasn’t that the streets of Roswell, Georgia or Atlanta didn’t hold warm memories for him. They did. New Orleans too, of course. He frequently missed being there. Philadelphia he could take or leave. It hardly mattered. Law school had been more of a bore than he expected, a necessary experience but not one he’d like to do a second time. London was what he had been looking for. Of course, he didn’t know it until he got there.

  When he joined the Foreign Service, Harry got a first-class introduction to cruel city streets. His initial posting was to Ankara, Turkey, where he spent two difficult but interesting years. Then he was sent to Cairo where he stayed another two years. When he was reassigned from Egypt to the Embassy in Paris, Harry Levine had survived four years in, if not the Third World, something close to it. Out of sheer necessity he had become expert in navigating their crooked, often nasty alleys. Being in France was so different-like being on holiday. Everything was so clean, including the Frenchmen he encountered in carrying out his duties. Unlike the Turks and Egyptians, the exchange of money was not a requirement of a routine transaction. Not all of them, anyway. And then, when he was posted to London, for the first time as an adult, he felt at home.

  He found a flat in Soho, just off Regent Street, within walking distance of the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square. He spent much of his free time casually strolling about in the small streets of London’s neighborhoods, among the ancient buildings that had withstood the centuries and the bombs. Often, he would lazily browse the stacks at Foyle’s or Blackwell’s bookshops in Charing Cross Road or the tiny, crowded stores in Berwick Street near Oxford Circus that featured old and rare recordings. Harry came to think of London as his city, a place where he felt as eternal as Westminster Abbey, as strong as the ancient Tower and as stable as Buckingham Palace. It was the only city in which he was ever truly serene.

  When transportation needs meant a ride was absolutely necessary, when walking was out of the question, he liked to take cabs, not embassy cars. Taxis held a special place in Harry’s life, in his sense of himself and his maturity. As a young man in Atlanta and later in New Orleans, as well as during those three cold years in Philadelphia, a taxi meant freedom and privacy. He could get in a cab, tell a stranger where to go, then sit back, alone, undisturbed and unperturbed. In those years, he recalled, there was no other place in his life where he exercised such total control, enjoyed such liberation and felt such anonymity, momentary and temporary as it may have been.

  He brought that aspect of his character overseas. In Turkey and Egypt he was thought foolhardy for rejecting embassy cars in favor of local taxis. At a hotel, restaurant or cafe, he frequently hailed a passing cab and off he went. More than once he was told how dangerous this behavior was. One senior official in Cairo actually accused Harry of “putting all Americans in Egypt in jeopardy” just by taking a cab ride. He never did figure that one out. It wasn’t until Paris that his liking for cabs went unnoticed. Of course, everything about Harry Levine seemed to go unnoticed at the American Embassy in Paris. Now, finally in London, getting from place to place was simply not an issue.

  The cabbies of London were like the grown men who drove cabs in the big cities of America many years ago. It was a real job, one for men with wives and families. If not a profession, it was a full-time occupation, something you could
be proud of, if that’s what you did. Harry liked it that London’s cabbies were polite- “Where to, sir?” they would ask. If they offered conversation at all, it too would be polite. Not like the cab drivers in America. Harry remembered them well. So many were Africans, men with poor language skills and no sense of direction. If they were white and spoke English, chances were all they talked about was “the fucking niggers” this, or “the fucking niggers” that. When they finished those filthy diatribes they always had to add something like “you know what I mean?” and Harry would be forced to reply, “Just drive.” England provided him many wonders, not least among them the return of his freedom, privacy and the sense of independence and security that waited for him in the back seat of a London taxi.

  Arriving at Herndon, Sturgis, Wells amp; Nelson, Harry found the small side door to the old five-story building and presented himself at Sir Anthony’s office exactly at ten o’clock. “Come in,” said Sir Anthony. “Please be seated. Do pour yourself some tea. I am Sir Anthony Wells.” He spoke with simple ease, aware that no one to whom he introduced himself could have been unaware. “And,” he said, “while I’ve not met you, I am pleased to see the duty officer was not a young lady. I hope that doesn’t offend you. I’ve nothing against young ladies. Quite the opposite in fact. It’s just…” and then he seemed to drift off, his attention sort of floating away on a gentle breeze, or maybe caught on the tide of some unseen ocean. His eyes even got kind of watery.

  Sir Anthony’s office was smaller than Harry expected, older and darker too. All the light in the room was provided by a single lamp on his desk. The building which housed this venerable law firm was probably three hundred years old, but the offices were new and modern, some obviously renovated recently. Not Sir Anthony’s. His suite of rooms was probably as it had been for a century or more. The outside office, his secretary’s, was by any reasonable description, tiny. Her desk-Harry pictured Sir Anthony’s secretary as an older, very proper woman-took up nearly all the available space. Behind that desk, hung upon the shiny oak paneled wall, was a large oil portrait of Sir Charles Herndon, the firm’s founder. Sir Anthony had actually seen him once in the summer of 1927 when Sir Charles, then in his late eighties, paid a final visit to “my place” as he called it. He died a few years later, just before Christmas. To Harry’s right, as he stood in the outside office, was what should have been the office used by Sir Anthony’s clerk. The door was halfway open and it appeared unoccupied, unused. No doubt, he had no need for a clerk any longer. To Harry’s left was Sir Anthony’s office. His walls, also oak from floor to ceiling, were completely lined with bookshelves, filled with law books and journals bound in special binders embossed with small letters. Harry couldn’t make out the citations identifying these volumes, but guessed they were very old and not much use to a working attorney today. The far wall was interrupted by a small fireplace in which no fire presently burned. The large window to the right and behind Sir Anthony’s desk looked directly out on the front of the building apparently near its center. Between the window and the fireplace was a glass table with no chairs and on it an elegant silver tea service for four complete with what appeared to be crackers and toast. Sir Anthony Wells sat behind a massive mahogany desk, far too large for an office this small. Two matching visitors’ chairs faced it head on. Harry poured himself a cup of tea, as his host requested, and sat down directly across from Sir Anthony. He looked at the old man closely. It was not often he met someone 100 years old. Sir Anthony was a small man, hard to measure sitting, but surely not more than five feet six inches. He was extremely thin in the way only very old people sometimes get. He wore an expensive gray wool suit that looked fairly new to Harry, and he had on a shirt with an old-fashioned collar, one that almost covered the knot in his tie. As Sir Anthony’s attention drifted, Harry thought he appeared ancient, delicate, probably breakable to the touch.

  “My name is Harry Levine. I’m in the Trade Section, sir. It’s a great honor to meet you, Sir Anthony. And I’m a lawyer. Like yourself.” He added that as if it might be a comfort to this old man. Harry stood, reached down and carefully shook the outstretched hand. Such an incredibly old and special hand, he thought. Meeting celebrities came easily with the Foreign Service, the worldwide adventure that was embassy life. Harry had met, and on occasion even worked closely with, a number of famous people. And, of course, there was his Aunt Chita. But this old hand, shaking his own, had known the shake of Kings and Queens, dictators and saviors. It held in its frail and aged palm almost all the history of the twentieth century. “How did you know,” asked Harry, “the Ambassador would not be coming himself?”

  “Yes, well, we do know your Mr. Brown attends to certain matters of a personal nature most Saturdays.”

  Harry was truly puzzled. “Then, why did you…?”

  “I had no choice. Which brings us right to the private matter for which I’ve asked you here.” Again the old man seemed to drift away, somewhere far off. For a moment he was no longer Sir Anthony Wells. He looked like any frightened, old man. Harry was struck with his use of the term “private matter.” What could the American Ambassador or, in his place, what could he, Harry Levine, possibly do for Sir Anthony Wells? And whatever it might be, in what way could it be called private?

  “For many years,” said Sir Anthony, once again himself, “I have been the lawyer for Lord Frederick Lacey. You may be familiar with Lord Frederick.”

  “Yes, I am of course,” Harry said. “Everyone knows… I mean he died just a few days ago.”

  “Indeed,” said Sir Anthony. “Tuesday last.”

  “I’ve read a few things about Lord Lacey. In fact, I assisted a client, an American company I mean, a few years ago and I had to do some research on Lord Lacey. A remarkable man.”

  “Yes,” said Sir Anthony. “Remarkable.”

  “I never associated his interests in any way with this firm, Herndon, Sturgis, Wells amp; Nelson. ”

  “Quite right. Quite right. Never did such an association exist. I, however, have been, or rather-was-the private lawyer for Lord Frederick going back many years before he was Lord or anywhere near it for that matter.” Sir Anthony paused a moment, a small but warm smile crossing his aged lips. “We were young together.” He reached across his desk to his right and removed a stack of file folders that covered a large metal box, a box with a lock, a box more than a foot high and three feet long, a box of the sort found in a safe deposit vault. He needed to stand to open it, turning it sideways to make room on his desk for the long top which he promptly raised up and folded flat back. From inside it Sir Anthony withdrew a packet of legal-size papers which Harry took to be a will, plus a second thick document, which looked at first sight to be handwritten on regular size paper or perhaps personal stationery. Sir Anthony needed both hands to lift it.

  “Lord Lacey liked to keep his varied interests separate from each other.” Sir Anthony went on. “And he treated his private affairs likewise. I never handled any of his business work and I saw to his personal affairs apart from my duties and obligations in this firm. Family things, from time to time. His wives. His daughter. Audrey, poor Audrey. And his will. I did his will. You know, Lord Frederick Lacey’s was the largest non-royal fortune in the whole history of Europe.” Sir Anthony’s voice, weak and frail like the man himself, cracked and wavered. The old man stopped and Harry didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.

  “I was twenty-five and he not much older when he first came to me,” Sir Anthony continued. “He had a great deal of money even then. Of course it wouldn’t be quite so much now, but it was an awful lot for 1930. I did his will then and every change since. I don’t do much now, surely you know that.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard that.”

  “I’d never hand over his work to another lawyer. And, of course, he wouldn’t have allowed it either. With that in mind, you should know the last time I did anything for him was many, many years ago, not since June 1968. That spring Lord Frederick instructed me
to make some changes in his will. He came in, signed it, sealed it himself, in this envelope.” He held it with two hands. “Right here in this office. He sat just where you are now. Rather strange, but I recall it quite clearly. He placed my document, the will, together with his own, wrapped in a large, sealed package, in this very lockbox, shook my hand and clasped my shoulder rather like an old friend bidding farewell. Then he left and never set foot in this office again. I saw him, from time to time after that, but never again professionally. Given the enormous size of his estate, I did wish to certify the continuing validity of the will and, over the course of time, I would have him sign a letter simply stating there was no other will. It was all done by post. The last such letter is right here, signed by him, dated eight months before his death.” He stopped. Harry had the feeling Sir Anthony did not want to continue. What he had said Harry found fascinating; however, he had yet to say anything even remotely relevant to the American Ambassador, or his personal representative, who Harry was.

  “When Lord Frederick Lacey died,” Sir Anthony resumed, “he left a will, a copy of which you see before you. While it serves to distribute an amount of money even some modern heads of state are not used to dealing with, his wishes are really quite uncomplicated and frankly not very interesting at all, not titillating, if you know what I mean. Lord Lacey lived to be a hundred and seven years old. Quite old, indeed. He’d outlived his brother, his sisters, his wives and his only child. He did not involve any of his relatives in any of his business interests. Although he leaves substantial sums of money to the surviving members of his family, no matter how distant, their share represents a tiny fraction of the real value of his estate. The bulk of his personal fortune will go to various foundations and charitable organizations. Its disposition will be private and, I assure you, lacking in any controversy. I suspect the news media will take no interest. For all his youthful celebrity, in the last half-century of his life Lord Frederick was really not well known. Private as were his financial affairs in life, he had no wish for them to be otherwise in death.” With that, Sir Anthony pushed aside the will and once more put his hands on the handwritten pages in front of him.