Halfway House (18 page)

Bill whirled and demanded a dismissal of the charges. But the testimony of the French fingerprint expert had completely changed the complexion of the case. Judge Menander refused. Bill was flushed; he was very angry and breathing hard. “Your Honor, the defense requests an adjournment. The testimony of the last witness comes as a complete surprise. We have not had an opportunity to examine into the subject-matter of the testimony, and ask for one.”

“Granted.” The Judge rose. “Adjourned until tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.”

When Lucy had been taken away and the jury had filed out, the press-box exploded. With feverish haste the newspaper people scrambled out of the courtroom.

Bill looked limply at Ellery; then his eyes flashed across the room. Andrea Gimball was staring at him with a cloudy, tight-lipped anguish. He looked away. “Bombshell. Lucy didn’t say—”

Ellery took his arm gently. “Come on, Bill. There’s work to do.”

The red-haired woman found Ellery smoking thoughtfully on a bench behind the Old State House overlooking the placid river. Bill Angell patrolled the walk before the bench with a ceaseless and inhuman energy. The night sky was smoky with heat.

“So there you are,” she said cheerfully, dropping beside Ellery. “Bill Angell, you’ll wear your soles away. In this swelter, too! And I don’t mind telling you that every news hawk in the world is looking for you. Eve of the defense, and what not… I suppose,” she said suddenly, “I ought to shut up.”

There was a gaunt and indrawn look imprinted on the yellowed skin of Bill’s face. His eyes were two sullen lights at the bottom of red-rimmed wells. All afternoon and evening he had been calling in experts, sending out investigators, rounding up witnesses, conferring with colleagues, making innumerable telephone calls. He should have been reeling with fatigue.

“You’re not doing yourself or Lucy any good, going on this way, Bill,” said Ella in a subdued voice. “First thing you know you’ll wake up in a hospital, and then where will the poor thing be?”

Bill’s legs continued to pump. The red-haired woman sighed and crossed her long legs. From the river came a girl’s empty shout and the deep laughter of a man. The State House behind them was quiet, squatting on the dark lawns like an old bullfrog. Bill flung his hands up suddenly and waved them at the smoky sky. “If only she had told me!”

“What does she say?” murmured Ellery.

Bill made a snorting, desperate sound. “Simplest explanation imaginable—so simple no one will believe it. Joe brought that damned desk-set home with him Friday night. Naturally, she wanted to see it. So she unwrapped it and looked it over. And that’s how her prints got on the metal parts. Beautiful, eh?” He laughed shortly. “And the only witness who can corroborate her statement is dead!”

“Oh, come now, Bill,” said Ella Amity in a light tone, “that does sound reasonable. Who wouldn’t believe that a gift from two people would be handled by both? The desk-set was from Joe and Lucy and, lo! Joe’s and Lucy’s prints are found on it. Why should a jury disbelieve that?”

“You heard that Wanamaker clerk on the stand. The set was bought by Joe—alone. It was wiped clean by the wrapper before being handed over. Joe wrote the gift card in the store himself. No hint of Lucy yet, is there? Then what? Joe went home. Can I prove that? No! True, he’d told me he was leaving Philadelphia the next morning, which implies that he meant to spend the night with Lucy; but implication isn’t proof and, considering the source, it’s biased testimony. No one saw him come home Friday night, no one saw him leave home Saturday morning. No one but Lucy, and you can’t expect a prejudiced jury to believe the unsupported word of a defendant.”

“They’re not prejudiced, Bill,” said the red-haired woman quickly.

“Good of you to lie. Have you been watching the pan of Juror Number 4? When I approved her I thought I had fertile ground there—fat, fifty, definitely middle-class, domestic. … Now she turns raging female! Lucy’s too damned beautiful; she makes every woman who sees her squirm with envy. The others—Number 7’s got a tendency to cramps. How the hell was I to know that? He’s sore at the world. Ah, nuts.” Bill waved his arms.

They were silent, finding nothing to say. After a while Bill muttered, “It’s going to be a fight, all right.”

“You’re putting Lucy on the stand?” asked Ellery quietly.

“Heavens, man, she’s my only hope! I can’t dig up a witness to support her movie alibi nor one for the fingerprint business, so she’s got to testify herself. Maybe she’ll make a sympathetic witness.” He dropped onto a bench opposite them and ruffled his hair. “If she doesn’t, God help us both.”

“But, Bill,” objected Ella, “aren’t you being too pessimistic? I’ve pumped some of the legal talent floating around town, and they all think Pollinger’s got a poor jury case. It
is
circumstantial evidence, after all. There’s certainly enough reasonable doubt…”

Bill said patiently: “Pollinger’s a crack prosecutor. And he has last whack at the jury, don’t forget that—State sums up after the defense. Any experienced trial lawyer will tell you he’ll concede half his case just to leave the last impression on the minds of the jury. And then public opinion—” He scowled.

“What about public opinion?” demanded the woman indignantly.

“Oh, you’ve been a trump, Ella. But you haven’t the legal slant. You’ve no idea what harm was done by that insurance business.”

Ellery shifted on the bench. “The what?”

“Even before the case went to trial it leaked out that the National was withholding payment of the insurance to Lucy on grounds of suspicion that the beneficiary might have murdered the insured. Page one stuff. Old Hathaway made a speech about it to the reporters; he didn’t put it quite that way, but the inference was plain. Naturally, I tried to patch up some of the damage by filing suit in New York to compel payment of the policy. But that’s routine; the pivotal point is the outcome of the trial. Meanwhile, every potential juryman in the county read that story. The gang over at the Court House denied it, but they did.”

Ellery flipped a cigaret away. “What’s the defense, Bill?”

“Lucy herself to explain the fingerprint mess, her alibi, so on. You to bring out discrepancies unaccounted for by the prosecution. You’ll do that, of course, Ellery?” Bill asked suddenly.

“Don’t be a greater ass than you can help, Bill.”

“There’s one angle you can be of service on, El. The match-stubs.”

“Match-stubs?” Ellery blinked a little. “What about them? How?”

Bill jumped off the bench and began pacing again. “There’s no question that those stubs prove the murderess smoked while lying in wait for Gimball. It will be easy for me to prove that Lucy doesn’t smoke and never has. If I put you on the stand——”

“But, Bill,” said Ellery slowly, “there
is
a question about that. A very large question. So large, in fact, that there’s every logical indication that you’re completely wrong.”

Bill halted. “What’s that? Not smoking?” he seemed bewildered; his eyes had sunken even deeper into his head.

Ellery sighed. “I went over that room with a fine comb, Bill. I found a large number of burnt match-stubs on the plate. All right; it’s natural to think of smoking at once. But what are the facts?”

“Lesson Number One in how to be a detective,” chuckled the red-haired woman, but she was watching Bill with anxiety.

“Smoking,” frowned Ellery, “means tobacco. Tobacco means ashes and butts. What did I find? Not the minutest trace of ashes or butts, not the most fragmentary shred of tobacco, consumed or otherwise. No burns anywhere, no signs on the plate or table that a cigaret had been ground out, not the faintest indication in the fireplace or on the rug of a burn or ashes or butts—and I went over that rug inch by inch, examining every thread. And finally, no butts or ashes outside the windows on the ground or anywhere in the vicinity, showing that none had been flicked out of the windows from inside the shack.” He shook his head. “No, Bill. Those matches were employed for any purpose
but
smoking.”

“So that’s out,” said Bill, and fell silent.

“Wait a minute.” Ellery waved another cigaret. “There’s something out, true, but by the same token there’s something in. Something that may help you in your general plan of attack. Before I go into that, however,” he squinted through the smoke, “may I ask what you intend to do about Miss Andrea Gimball?”

A woman, tall and cool in lawn, was strolling along the walk on the arm of a man. The group at the benches grew very still. The woman’s face was dim, but it was evident that she was listening to her escort, whose burly body jerked restlessly from side to side as if he were in a passion about something. Then the pair came within range of an overhead lamp, and they recognized Andrea Gimball and her fiancé. Burke Jones halted abruptly, glowering. So did Andrea; and she looked at Bill as if he had been a ghost. Then the yellow of Bill’s skin began to redden; he closed his hands and stared down at the resulting fists. Andrea turned like a wraith and ran off down the walk in the direction from which she and her escort had come. Jones stood irresolute for a moment, glaring from Bill to the running girl; and then he too broke into a run, his trussed arm swinging swiftly against his coat.

Ella Amity jumped to her feet. “Bill Angell, I could shake you!” she cried. “What in the name of common sense has got into you? You fool! You’ve picked a sweet time to act like a kid with his first crush!”

Bill’s fingers opened. “You don’t understand, Ella. None of you understands. The girl means nothing to me.”

“Tell that to the Marines!”

“I’m interested in her because I’ve discovered that she’s concealing something.”

“Oh,” said Ella in a different voice. “What?”

“I don’t know. But it’s so important to her that she’s frantic at the mere thought of going on the stand. So,”—he opened and shut his hands rapidly—“that’s exactly where she’s going. Fool, am I?” His eyes strained after the stumbling figure far down the walk. “I’ll show her who’s a fool. She’s important to me—to poor Lucy. So important I’m saving her to be my final witness!”

“Bill,
darling
. That’s the old Blackstone speaking. Good for you, counselor. Is this for publication?”

“Not officially,” said Bill grimly. “But it might be rumored. There’s nothing Pollinger can do about it. I’ve subpœnaed her.”

“Rumored it is, Your Worship. Seein’ you, darling!” And Ella snapped her fingers and scurried off after the vanished pair.

“Bill,” said Ellery. Bill sat down, averting his eyes. “I think I know what that decision means to you.”

“Means? Why should it mean anything to me? I’m glad of it for Lucy’s sake! You people give me a pain. Means!”

“Of course you are, Bill,” said Ellery soothingly. “And so am I. For more reasons,” he added in a thoughtful voice, “than one.”

When the jury retired after Judge Menander’s charge opinion among the initiate varied. Many thought that the verdict would come swiftly for acquittal. Others predicted a long session ending in a disagreement. Only a handful envisioned conviction.

Lucy, it is true, had made a poor witness. From the first, she was nervous, jumpy, scared. While Bill led her through her testimony she was quiet enough, answering readily, even smiling faintly at times. Through his sympathetic questions she told of her life with the man she had known as Joseph Wilson, his kindness to her, their love, a detailed account of their meeting, courtship, marriage, daily life.

Gradually Bill worked her around to the period just before the crime. She related how they had discussed buying something for Bill’s birthday; how Wilson had promised to get something on Friday, the day before his death, in Wanamaker’s; how he had brought the desk-set home with him that night and she had unwrapped it and examined it; and how he had taken the gift with him on leaving Saturday morning, promising to stop off and give it to Bill that very day. She was on the stand during direct examination for a day and a half, and by the time Bill had finished with her she had explained everything and denied all of the State’s allegations. Then Pollinger sprang to the attack.

Pollinger assailed her story with consummate viciousness. The man was a human question-mark, with savage gestures and infinite variations in tonal insinuation. He sneered at her protestations of honesty. He derided her statement that she had never known or even suspected her husband’s real identity, pointing out that no jury would believe that a woman could live with a man for ten years—especially when he ‘suspiciously’ spent most of his time away from home—without coming to learn everything there was to learn about him. His cross-examination was merciless; Bill was continuously on his feet shouting objections.

At one point Pollinger snarled, “Mrs. Wilson, you had an opportunity to make a statement—a hundred statements—long before today, did you not?”

“Yes.”

“Why haven’t you told this story about how your fingerprints got on the paper-cutter before? Answer me!”

“I—I—no one asked me.”

“But you knew your fingerprints were on that knife, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t realize—”

“You do realize, though, don’t you, what a bad impression you are making by suddenly pulling this flimsy explanation out of your bag of tricks—after you know how dark things look for you and have had an opportunity to talk things over with your counsel?”

The whole question was stricken out at Bill’s enraged objections, but the blow had told. The jury were frowning. Lucy was wringing her hands.

“You have also testified,” snapped Pollinger, “that your husband promised to stop in at your brother’s office that Saturday morning and hand over this gift, haven’t you?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“But he didn’t, did he? The gift was found in its original wrappings in that isolated shack miles from Philadelphia, wasn’t it?”

“I—He must have forgotten. He must have—”

“Don’t you realize, Mrs. Wilson, that it’s quite obvious to everyone here that you lied about that gift? That you never did see it at your own home? That you first saw it at the shack—”

By the time Pollinger was through with her, despite all Bill could do to have accusatory questions stricken out, Lucy was completely unstrung, weeping, at times flaring into anger, and constantly—through the traps of pure language Pollinger set—contradicting her own testimony. The man was very clever about it; his ferocity was all on the surface, a calculated emotion nicely adjusted to the instability of the witness. Beneath he was as cool and relentless as a machine. It was necessary to recess until Lucy could recover from hysteria.