Halfway House (20 page)

“You thought he was dead, when as a matter of fact he was still alive?” asked Bill harshly.

“Yes.”

“You didn’t touch his body, Miss Gimball?”

“Oh, no, no!”

As she went on to explain her shock, her scream, and her flight from the house, Ellery quietly scribbled a few notes on a sheet of paper and had it passed to Bill. Andrea stopped in her recital, her eyes widening with a milky fear that turned them from blue to gray.

Bill’s lips tightened queerly. The paper in his fingers jerked a little. “How long were you in the shack—on your second visit?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. Minutes.” She was thoroughly frightened now, her shoulders a little drawn up as if to protect herself.

“Minutes. When you came the first time, at eight o’clock, was there a car in either driveway?”

It was almost as if she were thinking things out in her distress, choosing the unuttered words with a painful care. “There was no car in the main driveway. There was an old sedan—that Packard—in the side drive, parked against the little porch at the side.”

“The Wilson car; that’s right. Now, when you came back—if it was only a matter of minutes, by the way, that you spent in the shack, you must have got there the second time around nine? I saw you leave, remember, at eight after.”

“I… suppose so.”

“When you returned at nine, then, the Packard was still there, of course; but was any other car standing in either driveway?”

Very quickly she said, “No. No. Not at all.”

“And you say,” Bill went on relentlessly, “you saw no one inside the house either the first time or the second time?”

“No one. Not a soul.” She was breathless now. At the same time she raised her eyes, and they were so full of pain, so reproachful, so choked with a mute plea, that Bill colored a little.

“Didn’t you see automobile tracks in the main driveway the second time?”

“I—I don’t remember.”

“You have testified that, having come early, you drove off on Lamberton Road toward Camden for about an hour. Do you recall having passed a Ford coupé driven by a veiled woman on either the outward or the return trip?”

“I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember. Do you remember what time you got back to New York that night?”

“About eleven-thirty. I—I went home, changed into evening things, drove down to the Wardorf where I joined my mother’s party.”

“Didn’t anyone remark on your long absence?”

“I—No. No.”

“Your fiancé was there without you, your mother was there, Mr. Finch, other friends, and no one remarked on your absence, Miss Gimball? You expect us to believe that?”

“I—I was upset. I don’t recall… that anyone said anything.”

Bill’s lips curled; his face was toward the jury. “By the way, Miss Gimball, what did you do with that note the murderess left for you?”

Pollinger automatically sprang to his feet; then he seemed to think better of it, for he sat down without having said anything. “Note?” faltered Andrea. “What note?”

“The note written with the burnt cork. You heard Mr. Queen’s testimony. What did you do with that note?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her voice rose a little. “I tell you there was no—I mean I know nothing about a note!”

“There were three people on the scene of that crime, Miss Gimball,” said Bill tensely. “The victim, the murderess, and you. That’s giving you the benefit of every doubt. The murderess wrote the note after the crime, so she didn’t write it to her victim. She certainly didn’t write it to herself!
Where is that note?
”

“I don’t know anything about a note,” she cried hysterically.

“I think,” drawled Pollinger, rising, “that this has gone far enough, Your Honor. This witness is not on trial. She has given sufficient answer to what is certainly an objectionable question.”

Bill replied at length, arguing passionately. But Judge Menander shook his head. “You have been answered, Mr. Angell. I think you had better proceed with your examination.”

“Exception!”

“You may have it. Proceed, please.”

Bill turned fiercely to the witness box. “Now, Miss Gimball, may I ask you to explain to this jury if you have ever told your story of that evening’s adventures to any official investigator of this crime—Chief De Jong, Prosecutor Pollinger, or any of their men?”

Again Pollinger half-rose, but he sank back. Andrea glanced at him, moistening her lips.

“We want your own story, Miss Gimball,” said Bill ironically. “You will oblige me by not looking for assistance from the prosecutor.”

She fumbled with her gloves. “I—Yes, I did.”

“Oh, you did. Did you tell them this story voluntarily? Did you come forward with it of your own free will?”

“No, I—”

“Oh, then, Chief De Jong or Mr. Pollinger came to you?”

“Mr. Pollinger.”

“In other words, had Mr. Pollinger not approached you, you would not have gone to the authorities with your story? Just a moment, Mr. Pollinger. You waited until the authorities came to you! When was this, Miss Gimball?”

She shielded her eyes from the stares of the courtroom. “I don’t remember exactly. Perhaps a week after it…”

“After the crime? Don’t be afraid to say it, Miss Gimball. The
crime
. You aren’t frightened by that word, are you?”

“I—No. No. Of course not.”

“A week after the crime, the prosecutor came to you and questioned you. During that week you said nothing to the authorities about having visited the scene of the crime on the night of the murder. Is that correct?”

“It—it wasn’t important. I couldn’t contribute anything. I disliked getting involved—”

“You disliked getting involved in an ugly mess? Is that it? Now, Miss Gimball, while you were on the scene that night did you touch the knife?”

“No!” She was answering with more spirit now; her eyes flashed and were blue again. They glared at each other across the rail.

“Where was the knife?”

“On the table.”

“You didn’t so much as lay a finger on it?”

“No.”

“Were you wearing gloves that night?”

“Yes. But I had my left glove off.”

“Your right glove was on your hand?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t it true that in fleeing from the shack you banged your hand against the door and dislodged the diamond of your engagement ring?”

“Yes.”

“You lost it? You didn’t know you had dropped it?”

“I—No.”

“Isn’t it true that I found it ,and told you about it the very night of the crime, and that you pleaded with me desperately not to say anything about it to anyone?”

She was furious now. “Yes!” Her cheeks were fiery.

“Isn’t it true,” asked Bill in a hoarse, impassioned voice, “that you even kissed me in an effort to keep me from disclosing the fact to the police?”

She was so stunned she half-rose from the chair. “Why, you—you promised! You—you—” She bit her lip to keep back the tears.

Bill tossed his head, doggedly. “Did you see the defendant on the night of the crime?”

The fire in her cheeks was quenched. “No,” she whispered.

“You didn’t see her at any time—in the shack, near the shack, on the road between the shack and Camden?”

“No.”

“But you admit that
you
visited the scene of the crime that night and said nothing to anyone about it until you were accused pointblank in private by the prosecutor?” Pollinger was on his feet now, shouting. There was a long argument.

“Miss Gimball,” resumed Bill hoarsely, “didn’t you know that your stepfather was leading a double life?”

“No.”

“Didn’t you know that he had shortly before June first removed your mother as beneficiary of his million-dollar policy?”

“No!”

“You hated your stepfather, didn’t you?”

Another wrangle. Andrea was white now, white with rage and shame. At the prosecutor’s table the Gimball group were flushed with indignation. “All right,” said Bill curtly, “that’s enough for
me
. Inquire.”

Pollinger strode to the rail of the box. “Miss Gimball, when I came to you a week after the crime what did I say to you?”

“You said you had traced the roadster and found it belonged to my fiancé. You asked me if I hadn’t visited the—the scene on the night of the crime and, if so, why I hadn’t come forward and told you so.”

“Did it ever strike you that I was trying to shield you, or suppress your story?”

“No. You were very severe with me.”

“Did you tell me the story you have just told this jury?”

“Yes.”

“What did I say to that?”

“You said you would check up on it.”

“Did I ask you any questions?”

“A great many.”

“Pertinent questions? About the evidence? About what you saw and did not see, that sort of thing?”

“Yes.”

“And didn’t I then tell you that your story in no way conflicted with what evidence the State had already amassed against the defendant, and that therefore I would spare you the annoyance and pain of putting you on the stand during the trial?”

“Yes.”

Pollinger stepped back, smiling paternally. Bill stamped forward. “Miss Gimball, it’s true, is it not, that the State did not call you as a witness in this trial?”

“Yes.” She was weary now, sapped and limp.

“Although you had a story to tell that might conceivably put a reasonable doubt of the defendant’s guilt into the minds of the jury?”

The defense rested.

As they waited for the verdict and the hours massed into a day, and then into two days, with still no word from the jury, it was remarked that opinion had shifted since the close of the State’s case. The prolonged discussions in the jury room were a favorable sign for the defendant; at the very least, they seemed to indicate a deadlock. Bill was heartened; as the hours passed he even began to smile faintly.

The summations after the short session of rebuttal testimony had been swift. Bill, summing up first, had made out a strong indictment against Pollinger personally. He contended that not only had the defense reasonably explained away all the accusations of the State, but that Pollinger had been criminally remiss in his sworn duty. Pollinger, he thundered, had suppressed important evidence: the story of Andrea Gimball’s visit to the scene of the crime. It was the function of the public prosecutor, he pointed out, not to persecute, not to hold back any facts, but to sift for the truth. And Pollinger had deliberately ignored two other very important facts which would have gone unmentioned if not for the alertness of the defense’s witnesses: the burnt match-stubs and the charred cork. They had not been explained by the State and certainly had not been connected to the defendant. Moreover, the State had failed to prove that the veil was the defendant’s, had failed to produce the source from which the veil had come.

Finally, Bill outlined the defense theory. Lucy Wilson, he said, had obviously been framed for the murder of her distinguished husband. The powers of wealth, of social position, he cried, had picked a poor defenseless victim: the woman who had received nothing from Gimball but his love. Someone was offering her up as a victim. In support of this theory he pointed to the ‘crushing’ testimony of the Federal expert on metals, who had testified that the radiator-cap would not have broken off by itself. Someone, then, had knocked it off. But if someone had knocked it off, it must have been done deliberately; and it could only have been so done with intent to implicate the owner of the car from which it came, Lucy Wilson.

Starting from this, Bill argued—in line with the fervent discussion he had had with Ellery the night before—it was child’s play to reconstruct the devilish frame-up: the murderess stole Lucy’s car; she stopped for gas for no other reason than to fix the car and the veiled driver firmly in the station owner’s mind. “This is proved,” he cried, “by the fact that she did not really need gas, that she could have gone on for sixty, eighty miles on the gas already in her car’s tank!” She went to the shack, he continued, saw the paper-cutter with its gift card, killed Gimball with the knife, and finally drove back to Philadelphia and wrecked the car in a place where it would be—as it was—easily found by the police.

“If this defendant, my sister,” he roared, “were the criminal, why did she wear a veil? She would know that the shack was isolated, that there was little chance of her being seen except by the victim, who would be dead. But the real criminal had every reason to use a veil if she were framing Lucy! Should her own face be seen, the frame-up was defeated. For that matter, if Lucy were this woman, why did she leave the veil to be found in the car? But the criminal had every reason to do so if she were framing the crime around Lucy.

“Furthermore, if Lucy were the criminal everything she did was almost unbelievably stupid. Would she leave an open trail to her own car, would she leave impressions of her tires in the mud, would she permit her car to be found, would she leave the veil, would she make no attempt to fix an alibi for herself, would she wield that knife without the precaution of wearing gloves? Stupid, stupid! So stupid that its very stupidity cries out,” shouted Bill, “her innocence. But a woman framing Lucy would have every reason to leave such a plain trail!”

It was an impassioned summation, and it left a visible impression on the jury. Bill concluded more quietly on the note of reasonable doubt. If there was a single member of the jury, he said, who could honestly and conscientiously declare now that there was no reasonable doubt of the defendant’s guilt… He flung up his hands and sat down.

But Pollinger had the last word. He derided the ‘obvious’ defense theory of a frame-up, “the whimper,” he said, “of every weak defense.” As for the defendant’s stupidity, Pollinger remarked with a significant and open glance at Ellery, any
practical
criminologist knew that all criminals were stupid; it was only in
books
that criminals were masterminds. This defendant, he said, was not a habitual criminal; her motives had, as usual in the case of the vengeful woman, betrayed her into blind actions; she had left a trail without realizing that she had done so.