Halfway House (19 page)

Bill grinned doggedly at the jury and plunged ahead with the defense. He summoned witness after witness—neighbors, friends, tradespeople—to corroborate Lucy’s claim of untroubled felicity with the dead man until the very eve of his death. All testified that there never had been a suspicion in their minds concerning Wilson’s double life, that Lucy had never evinced the slightest sign of knowledge. He called several witnesses to testify to Lucy’s unfailing habit of attending a motion picture show in town on Saturday nights when her husband was presumably away on a ‘sales trip’. He established through friends and clerks in apparel shops she patronized that she had never bought or worn a veil. Through all this Pollinger moved with calm and sure interference, quick to catch a weakness in testimony or a predisposition to bias.

Then Bill went to work on the car. He had long since pointed out, during the testimony of one of Pollinger’s witnesses—the department fingerprint expert who examined the Ford—that there was no significance in the fact that only Lucy’s fingerprints had been found in the car. It was hers, she alone had driven it for years, and it was natural that her prints should be all over it. He had also tried, with uncertain success, to have certain smudges on the wheel and gear-shift interpreted as evidences of gloved hands, but this the witness had refused to concede.

Now Bill put a succession of experts on the stand to bring out that very point—all attacked in business-like fashion by the prosecutor, either on the score of the expert’s unreliability, poor previous trial record, or outright bias. The authenticity of the tire tracks Bill left severely alone. Instead, he put on the stand an expert in metals, employed in the Federal Bureau of Standards.

This witness testified that in his opinion the Ford’s radiator-cap could not have ‘fallen off’ by the process Pollinger had claimed: a rusty area so weakened by the car’s vibration that it finally snapped through on the scene of the crime without human agency. The expert said that he had analyzed the broken halves of the radiator-cap and that nothing less than a sharp blow could have caused the little metal woman to snap off at the ankles. He went into details of strains and metal-aging. This opinion Pollinger subjected to a searching cross-examination; finally promising to produce during rebuttal an expert who would testify to an opinion precisely opposite.

And then Bill, on the fourth day of the defense, put Ellery on the stand. “Mr. Queen,” said Bill after Ellery had sketched a little of his semi-professional background, “you were on the scene of the crime before even the arrival of the police, were you not?”

“Yes.”

“You examined the scene of the crime thoroughly, out of a purely professional interest in the case?”

“Yes.”

Bill held up a small, nondescript object. “Do you remember having seen this during your examination?”

“Yes.” It was a cheap plate.

“Where was it situated when you examined the room?”

“On the only table there, the table behind which the dead man lay.”

“It was in a prominent position, then; it couldn’t be missed?”

“No.”

“Was there anything on this plate, Mr. Queen, when you saw it?”

“Yes. A number of paper match-stubs, all showing evidences of having been burnt.”

“You mean that the matches had been struck and extinguished?”

“Yes.”

“You have heard the complete case presented by the State? You’ve sat in this courtroom since the beginning of the trial?”

“I have.”

“Has this plate,” asked Bill grimly, “or the match-stubs which you saw on it at the scene of the crime, been so much as mentioned once by the prosecution?”

“No.”

Pollinger leaped to his feet and for five minutes he and Bill argued before Judge Menander. Finally Bill was permitted to proceed. “Mr. Queen, you are well known as an investigator of crime. Have you anything to offer this jury in explanation of the burnt match-stubs so carefully ignored by the prosecution?”

“Oh, yes.”

There was another argument, more protracted this time. Pollinger fumed. But Ellery was permitted to go on. He went through the reasoning he had outlined to Bill a few nights before concerning the logical impossibility of the matches having been used for smoking purposes.

“You have just shown, Mr. Queen,” said Bill swiftly, “that the matches could not have been employed for smoking purposes. Is there anything you found on your examination of the shack which explains to your own satisfaction why the matches
were
used?”

“Indeed, yes. There was an object examined not only by me but by Chief De Jong and his detectives that very night. Its condition makes the conclusion, under the circumstances, inevitable.”

Bill brandished something. “Is this the object you refer to?”

“Yes.” It was the charred cork found on the paper-knife.

There was another argument, more violent this time. After a bitter exchange it was settled by the Judge, who permitted the cork to be placed in evidence as a defense exhibit. “Mr. Queen, this cork had been charred by fire when you found it?”

“Unquestionably.”

“It was found on the tip of the knife which killed Gimball?”

“Yes.”

“Have you, as a criminologist, any theory to account for this?”

“There is only one possible interpretation,” said Ellery. “Obviously when the knife was plunged into Gimball’s heart the cork was not on its tip. Therefore the cork must have been placed on the tip by the killer after the murder and then charred by repeated applications of the little paper-matches found on the plate. Why did the criminal do this? Well, what is the effect of a charred cork stuck on the point of a knife?
It becomes a crude but effective writing implement
. The knife provides leverage, the carbonized cork on its tip provides an edge capable of leaving legible marks. In other words, the killer after her crime wrote something for some purpose of her own.”

“Why in your opinion didn’t the killer employ a simpler device?”

“Because there wasn’t any. There were no ink-filled pens, pencils, or other writing tools anywhere in the shack or on the person of the victim—except for the desk-set, which had a pen and inkwell. But this pen and well were also dry, being new and never having been filled with ink. If the criminal wished to write, then, and had no writing implement on her own person, she would have to manufacture one, which was what she did. The cork, of course, came from the desk-set; she had already had to remove it, in all probability, to commit the crime. So she knew about it in advance of the necessity for writing. As for thinking of the device, the use of burnt cork in the theater, for example, is so universally known that it would not take brilliance to see the possibilities.”

“Have you heard the prosecution so much as mention this burnt cork in presenting its case against the defendant?”

“No.”

“Was a note found, or any sort of written message?”

“No.”

“Your conclusion from this?”

“Patently, it was taken away. If the killer wrote a note, it must have been to someone. It is logical to suppose, therefore, that this person took the note away, that there is a new factor in this case which has not heretofore been suspected. Even if the killer took her own note away, which is absurd, the mere fact introduces an element in no way accounted for by the prosecution.”

For an hour Ellery and Pollinger sparred across the rail of the witness box. It was Pollinger’s point that Ellery was a poor witness for two reasons: that he was a personal friend of the defendant, and that his reputation was based on ‘theory, not practice’. When Ellery was finally excused they were both dripping with perspiration. Nevertheless, it was conceded by the press that the defense had scored an important point. From that time on Bill’s whole manner changed. A bright confidence crept into his eyes which began to infect the jury. Number 2, a sharp-looking business man of Trenton, was observed whispering hotly to his neighbor, who had the blank features of one wholly aloof from the vicissitudes of the world. The blankness disappeared under a cloud of painful thought. Others in the jury box looked more interested than they had appeared for days.

On the last morning, after several sessions with relatively unimportant defense witnesses, Bill came into court with a squareness to his jaw that was remarked by everyone within eyeshot. He was pale, but not so pale as he had been; and there was a truculence in the glance with which he swept the courtroom that made Pollinger look thoughtful.

He wasted no time. “Jessica Borden Gimball to the stand!”

Andrea, behind the prosecutor’s table, gave a little gasp. Mrs. Gimball looked nauseated, then bewildered, and finally furious. There was a hasty conference at the table in which Senator Frueh, who had sat with Pollinger from the beginning of the trial, took the leading rôle. Then the society woman, striving to soften her features, took the stand.

Bill raked her with fierce questions, met Pollinger’s interruptions swiftly, put her through a scathing examination that left her white with rage. When he was through with her, despite all her acid protestations, the impression had accreted that Mrs. Gimball possessed far greater motive for killing Gimball than anyone else in the universe. Pollinger softened the blow by painting her, on cross-examination, as a gentle, misunderstood, and bewildered woman who had not even the consolation of marriage to repay her for the wrong Gimball had done. And he brought out her movements on the night of the murder, her attendance at the Waldorf charity ball—which Bill had questioned—and the improbability of the insinuation that she could have slipped away and driven some eighty miles and back without having been missed.

Bill instantly summoned Grosvenor Finch to the stand. He made the insurance executive admit that Mrs. Gimball had been Gimball’s beneficiary until a few weeks before his death. Although Finch denied it, the possibility was broached that Mrs. Gimball had learned of this beneficiary change through him. To cap the point, Bill recalled to Finch his statement to De Jong on the night of the murder—to the effect that ‘any of us could have slipped away and killed Joe.’

Pollinger retaliated with a stenographic transcript of the exact statement: ‘If you mean that any of us could have stolen off, driven out here, and stabbed Joe Gimball to death, I suppose you would be hypothetically correct.’ Then he asked: “What did you mean by that, Mr. Finch?”

“I meant that theoretically anything under the sun was possible. But I also pointed out the absurdity of it—”

“Are you in a position to state whether Mrs. Gimball was away from the Waldorf ballroom that evening for any length of time?”

“Mrs. Gimball did not leave the hotel all that evening.”

“Did you ever tell Mrs. Gimball that the man she thought her husband had suddenly made someone else his insurance beneficiary?”

“Never. I have testified to that effect innumerable times. There is not a single person in this world who can come forward and assert with truth that I so much as hinted that Gimball had changed his beneficiary.”

“That’s all, Mr. Finch.”

Bill got to his feet and said clearly: “Andrea Gimball.” The girl walked toward the witness box as if she were treading the last long mile. Her eyes were downcast and her hands, clasped tightly before her, were trembling. There was no color whatever in her cheeks. She swore to the formal oath and sat down to become so completely still that she might have been in a trance. The courtroom on the instant sensed hidden drama. Pollinger was gnawing his nails. Behind him the Gimball group showed unmistakable signs of nervousness.

Bill leaned over the box and stared at her until her eyes, as if drawn by a magnet, came up to meet his. Whatever bitter message flashed across the ionized inches of space between them no one ever knew; but both went even paler after a moment and their glances passed, Bill’s to come to rest on the wall behind, hers to go to her hands.

Then Bill said in a strangely flat voice, “Miss Gimball, where were you on the evening of June first?”

Her answer was just audible. “With my mother’s party at the Waldorf in New York.”

“All evening, Miss Gimball?” His tone almost caressed her, but it was the soft and savage caress of a stalking animal. She did not reply, but caught her breath and her lip in one convulsive gasp. “Answer the question, please!” She choked back a sob. “Shall I refresh your memory, Miss Gimball? Or shall I summon witnesses who will refresh it for you?”

“Please…” she whispered. “Bill…”

“You are under oath to tell the truth,” he said stonily. “I am entitled to an answer! Don’t you remember where you spent that part of the evening during which you were
not
at the Waldorf?”

In the commotion at the prosecutor’s table Pollinger snapped, “Your Honor, counsel is obviously impeaching his own witness!”

Bill smiled at him. “Your Honor, this is a trial for murder. I have summoned a witness who is hostile. I have the right directly to examine a hostile witness whose testimony I could not place on the record by cross-examination during the State’s presentation for the simple reason that the State did not present this witness. It is pertinent testimony, important testimony, and I shall connect it at once if I am given the opportunity by the prosecutor.” He added between his teeth: “Who seems strangely reluctant to have me do so.”

Judge Menander said, “It is perfectly proper for defense counsel to call and examine a hostile witness. Proceed, Mr. Angell.”

Bill growled, “Read the question, please.”

The stenographer obeyed. Andrea replied in a tired, hopeless way, “Yes.”

“Tell the jury where you spent the early part of that evening!”

“At the—the house by the river…”

“You mean the shack in which Gimball was murdered?”

She whispered, “Yes.”

The room exploded. The Gimball party was on its feet, shouting. Only Pollinger was unmoved. During the commotion Bill did not change expression, and Andrea closed her eyes. It took several minutes to quiet the courtroom. Andrea told her story then in a lifeless voice: how, upon receipt of her stepfather’s telegram, she had borrowed her fiancé’s Cadillac roadster and driven to Trenton; how, upon realizing that she was an hour early, she had driven off for a spin and returned at deep dusk to find the shack empty except for Gimball, lying still on the floor.