Leave Her to Heaven (39 page)

Harland had a moment with Ruth, to touch her hand, to say: ‘I never loved you so much.' Her fingers, clinging to his, shook and trembled; and he saw that in the reaction from these hours in the box, facing hundreds of curious eyes, she was weak and breathless now.

Then she was gone, Mrs. Sayward beside her, Deputy Hatch moving ponderously on their heels. Pettingill and Roger Pryde and Harland left the courthouse together, and when they were alone, Pryde shook Harland's hand. ‘You're a lucky man,' he said. ‘She's wonderful.'

Harland laughed brokenly. ‘I don't feel lucky,' he said. ‘I could kill Quinton — and every spectator, and the damned reporters.'

‘Easy,' Pryde warned him. ‘You'll have to keep your temper. Quinton will give her a hard time tomorrow, you know.'

Harland's fists knotted, but he did not speak. Before they reached the hotel, Leick joined them; and at Harland's suggestion he stayed to have dinner with them. It was served in Mr. Pettingill's room; and although they ate almost in silence, they sat afterward in talk a while.

‘Well,' Mr. Pettingill remarked. ‘Mrs. Harland made a splendid witness; and I'm sure she'll stand up under cross-examination. But after all, her testimony is negative; just a general denial, nothing more. Quinton will point out that if she did poison Ellen she would of course deny it. I hope the jury will believe her. My idea was to let her win them, let them come to know her and like her.'

‘They did,' Pryde agreed.

‘Well, we've made our denial,' the big man went on. ‘We can't question that Ellen died of arsenic poisoning, nor that arsenic was found in the Bar Harbor house in a bottle bearing Ruth's fingerprints, nor that Mr. Harland and Ruth — even before Ellen's death — were pretty good friends. So — where do we go from here?'

He hesitated, and they saw that he had forgotten them. ‘We
could put in some testimony about Ellen's previous attacks of indigestion,' he remarked. ‘Call her doctors, get their opinions that in each case — the apple pie and the curry — her illness seemed to them indigestion and nothing more. But that's still negative evidence — and Quinton would make them admit that her symptoms might have resulted from arsenic poisoning.' He looked thoughtfully at Harland. ‘Since we're arguing that she killed herself, we'll have to tell the jury that you and she were at odds.' His tone was a question, but Harland did not speak, and the lawyer said: ‘By the way, Ruth tells me Ellen had been warned she couldn't have any more babies?'

Harland assented. ‘Yes. I didn't know it till she told Ruth, in my hearing. The doctor never told me so.'

‘We'll check with him, see if her condition — physical condition — was such as to produce melancholia. What's his name?'

‘Doctor Patron.'

Mr. Pettingill said: ‘Make a note of that, Mr. Pryde.' Roger did so, and the big man suggested: ‘Better get him on the phone, see what he has to say.' Roger departed to do so, and Leick, sitting silently by, whittled a fresh fill for his pipe, rolling the tobacco to crumbs between his palms. Mr. Pettingill said thoughtfully: ‘We're arguing she committed suicide; but we'll have to at least suggest how she could have done so. We can argue that she saw Ruth prepare that envelope with the sugar in it, and fixed up a duplicate, and took it along in her coat pocket, and switched envelopes during the picnic, when she put the real envelope in her pocket; but it's easier to argue that she made the switch at Bar Harbor, or maybe in the car.'

‘Why?' Harland asked, not understanding.

‘Because if she'd switched the envelopes at the picnic, she'd have had to get rid of the one with the real sugar in it; but she had no chance to do that. She was with you or Ruth all the time. If she just stuck it in her pocket, it would have been found by now, by whoever put her clothes away.'

‘I suppose so,' Harland agreed. ‘Ruth must have cleaned her pockets out, and she'd have found it.'

‘I'll ask Ruth about that,' Mr. Pettingill decided. ‘Or Mrs. Freeman might know. But no, you went direct from Leick's place to Boston — took her clothes along, I suppose?'

Harland hesitated, and Leick answered. ‘That's right. Mrs. Harland wrapped them up in some paper, put them in the car; and I mind she took everything out of the coat pockets, cigarettes and matches and dark glasses and a little purse and a handkerchief.'

‘Well, that's too bad,' Mr. Pettingill commented. ‘If we could show she got rid of the real envelope with the sugar in it at the picnic, we could nail the thing right down snug.'

Then Roger Pryde came back, saying quickly:

‘Dick, I've got Doctor Patron on the phone, but he wants to talk to you. Professional ethics, I suppose. I told them to switch him up here.'

Harland took the phone and heard the doctor on the line. ‘This is Richard Harland, Doctor,' he explained. ‘We're working on the theory that Mrs. Harland committed suicide, and I wanted to ask you — was there anything in her physical condition to produce melancholia?'

‘No, no,' Doctor Patron told him. ‘She was perfectly healthy.'

‘I thought possibly — I know of course that you'd told her she could never have a baby.'

‘Never have a baby?' Harland heard the indignant surprise in the other's tone.

‘She told us so, yes,' he said.

‘Nonsense!' Doctor Patron exclaimed. ‘She could have had a dozen! There was nothing wrong with her at all!'

Harland hesitated, looking at the others. ‘Hold the line a minute,' he said, and cupped the transmitter and spoke to Mr. Pettingill. ‘Doctor Patron says she could have had babies all right. I remember now I suspected at the time that she just said that so Ruth wouldn't wonder why we didn't have another.' And he asked: ‘Do you want him to come up here, to testify?'

Pettingill hesitated. ‘We can tell better tomorrow night,' he decided; and when Harland left the phone, he added, his hand caressing his heavy chin: ‘Well, that's interesting. Psychologically
at least.' He looked at Harland. ‘You say Mrs. Huston thought Ellen got rid of her baby on purpose. Doctor Patron might know.'

Harland said wretchedly: ‘He couldn't know surely. Let's not go into that.'

‘We're claiming that she not only killed herself, but deliberately tried to throw the guilt on Ruth,' Mr. Pettingill reminded him. ‘We'll need to show the jury she was an extraordinarily selfish, jealous, malicious woman.' But Harland did not speak; and after a moment Leick said:

‘I b'en thinking, Mr. Pettingill. That other envelope, the one with the real sugar in it, she might have thrown it into the fire.'

‘Possibly,' Pettingill agreed, and sat in silent thought, and then suddenly he rose, dismissing them. ‘Well, we're all tired,' he said. ‘Mr. Harland, go to bed, get a good rest. I want you to follow Mrs. Harland on the stand.'

Harland when he was alone found his brow beaded with moisture at thought of the morrow; but whatever he need do for Ruth's sake he would do. He slept easily, too near exhaustion to stay awake; slept like a man drugged.

Harland did not see Ruth next morning until in court she came to her seat beside him; he had time for no more than a secret pressure of her hand before she took the stand and Quinton rose to begin her cross-examination. Quinton said at once:

‘Now, Mrs. Harland, you have pleaded not guilty to this indictment, so I don't expect you to admit poisoning your sister. But there are a few questions I'd like to ask you. Go back to the time when your Boston house was sold. Your father had a workshop where he sometimes skinned and stuffed birds, on the top floor of that house?'

‘Yes.'

‘He had there a supply of arsenic?'

‘Yes.'

‘After your father died, did you enter that room?'

‘Yes. After he died, Ellen put his things in order, and — — '

‘I asked about you, not Ellen.'

Ruth continued as though he had not spoken: ‘And I went in now and then to dust and clean.'

‘An unused room? Weren't the windows closed?‘

‘Yes.'

‘Then why did it need dusting?'

Ruth smiled. ‘I'm afraid you're not a housekeeper.'

‘At any rate, on one pretext or another, you often went into that room.'

‘Yes. Several times.'

‘After your mother died, you sold the house?'

‘Ellen and I. We owned it jointly.'

‘But you yourself cleaned out that room?'

‘May I tell you just what happened?'

Quinton bowed. ‘Nothing would please me more.'

‘Very well,' Ruth assented. ‘We decided to sell the house, Ellen and I. Ellen came one day to discuss what should be done with the furniture. She suggested that the Museum might like some of Father's things. She stayed in that room alone, saying she wished to “say good-bye to Father,” and I went downstairs. She joined me after perhaps ten minutes.' Harland saw triumphantly that Quinton's own question allowed Ruth to remind the jury that Ellen too had access to the arsenic. ‘Next day the Museum sent a man who selected what he wanted.'

Quinton said in an ironic tone: ‘What we want to hear, Mrs. Harland, is what you did with the arsenic in that room. I trust you will come to the point.'

‘Oh, I will,' she assured him. ‘After the Museum man was done, I cleaned out everything. The arsenic I put in the furnace, burned it.'

‘How much was there?'

‘Two jars, quart jars. One full, the other almost empty.'

‘I don't expect you to admit that you kept any of that arsenic; but if you wished, you could have done so?'

‘Of course,' Ruth assented. ‘I could have kept it all, but I didn't.'

‘Were you alone when you cleaned the room?'

‘Yes.'

Quinton led her to describe the Bar Harbor workshop, inquiring what was done with the arsenic there; and she said she destroyed it the summer after Ellen's death.

‘The arsenic was there in the workshop before her death?'

‘Oh yes.'

‘You had the key to the shop?'

‘Yes. It was kept in the back entry, hanging on a nail.'

‘Did you at any time take some of the arsenic and put it into a bottle and hide it behind the baseboard in your room?'

‘No.'

‘You knew there was such a hiding place?'

‘Yes. Ellen — — '

‘Did any other living person know about that hiding place?'

‘Ellen knew about it.'

‘But Ellen has been dead almost two years.'

‘She and I were — as far as I know — the only ones who knew about that place.'

‘How recently have you hidden anything there?'

‘I never did. Ellen discovered the loose baseboard when we were children. The carpenters forgot to nail it in place, I suppose . . .'

‘Never mind your suppositions. You and Ellen used to hide things there.'

‘Ellen did. I came to our room one day when we were children and she had the baseboard pried out and propped open with a book, but she was furious with me for seeing her. I promised never to tell, and she told me never to dare look in there, and I never did.'

‘Were you always so obedient to her wishes?'

‘We all did what Ellen wanted.'

‘But you never put anything in there?'

‘No, never.'

‘I show you a certain bottle. Do you recognize it?'

‘Yes.'

‘Tell us about it.'

‘It was given to me.'

‘When?'

‘For my birthday, I think. In August, the year before Mother and Ellen died.'

‘Was that the summer you cleaned out your father's workshop at Bar Harbor?'

‘No, I did that after Ellen died.'

‘About the bottle. What was in it?'

‘It was a bottle of bath salts. I used them once or twice, left the bottle at Bar Harbor when we went home to Boston. In the cabinet in my bathroom.'

‘When did you see it again?'

‘I'm not sure. I came to Bar Harbor in August, the year Ellen died, about two weeks before Ellen and Mr. Harland came. I don‘t remember seeing the bottle then, but I might have forgotten. I don't remember seeing it till I saw it here in court.'

‘When did you first miss it?'

‘I never missed it.'

‘Did you use some other bath salts?'

Ruth smiled. ‘I never had used any before, largely because I normally take a shower. I used these once or twice, as one does, to show my appreciation of the gift; but then I forgot them.'

‘When did you last touch this bottle?'

‘I'm sure I don't know. I don't remember seeing it since the year before Ellen died.'

On this point Quinton hammered at her; but Ruth remained calm and unshaken. Then he turned to the day of the picnic, leading her to recite her every action that day.

‘You took two thermos bottles full of coffee?' he asked.

‘Yes.'

‘How well did you know Leick Thorne before that day?'

‘As well as I do now. I've barely seen him since.'

‘You became acquainted where?'

‘Mostly on our fishing trip up in Canada.' .

‘Did you notice on that trip that he never drank coffee?'

‘Yes. The other guides drank coffee for breakfast, but even for breakfast he drank tea.'

‘Did he use sugar in his tea?'

‘Yes.'

‘Why didn't you take tea for him to drink that day?'

‘I forgot it.'

‘Are you always so forgetful of those who serve you?'

‘I hope not.'

‘By neglecting to take tea, you made sure he would not use sugar that day?'

‘I thought nothing about it. I forgot the tea, that's all.'

‘But if you had thought about it, you would have known, would you not, that since you took along no tea, and he did not drink coffee, he would use no sugar?'

‘I presume so.'

‘Mrs. Harland, when your sister, at the point of death, tried to tell you that she had been poisoned, why did you not try to save her?'

Ruth's tones strengthened. ‘I do not believe she tried to tell us anything of the sort. And in any case, we tried in every way to save her.'

‘You heard her pathetically gasp out the dreadful word “poison”?'

‘Yes.'

‘What did you believe she meant?'

‘I did not think.'

‘I see. You thought nothing about the fact that Leick would not use the poisoned sugar, and you thought nothing about your sister's statement that she was poisoned.'

‘I did not know the sugar was poisoned.'

Harland, listening, seeing how steadily she met every barb, felt his throat swell with tender pride. Then Quinton shifted his attack, demanded:

‘Mrs. Harland, do you love Mr. Harland?'

‘Yes.'

‘You first met him in New Mexico?'

‘Yes.'

‘Was it love at first sight?'

‘No.'

‘You spent two weeks with him then?'

‘We were in the same party for two weeks.'

‘At the end of those two weeks, did you love him?'

‘No.'

‘You next saw him — where?‘

‘At Sea Island.‘

‘Did you love him there?'

‘No.'

Harland, his fists clenched and a sick rage shaking him, spoke to Mr. Pettingill, whispering over the other's shoulder. ‘Damn it, can't you make him stop that?'

Quinton asked: ‘When you next saw him, at Bar Harbor, did you love him then?'

Mr. Pettingill rose slowly. ‘Your Honor,' he suggested. ‘I don't want to hinder Brother Quinton from doing the best he can with what he's got to work with; but it strikes me he's asking for an opinion, and that's not competent.'

Quinton addressed the bench. ‘Your Honor, love is not an opinion. It's a physical reaction. It's a fact. At one time this defendant did not love Mr. Harland. At some later time, she did. I want to fix the time when the change occurred.'

Judge Andrus allowed the question; but Quinton for the moment turned back to the sale of the Boston house, making Ruth describe again the disposal of the arsenic there. In the middle of this interrogation he asked sharply:

‘Mrs. Harland, when you learned Danny was dead, did you love Mr. Harland?'

‘No.'

‘When you comforted Mr. Harland after the birth of his stillborn child, did you love him then?'

‘No.'

‘How did you comfort him?'

Harland‘s breath caught, but Ruth answered simply and straightforwardly: ‘I tried to find words. I put him to bed, made him rest and sleep.'

‘Where did you put him to bed? Whose bed? How? Did you undress him?' The questions pounded quick and hard; but Ruth's quiet answers robbed them of their sting. He went back to the matter of the bath salts, broke off that line of questioning to demand: ‘The day Ellen died, did you love him then?' Harland, watching Ruth, saw her color slowly fade, and knew how weary she must be; and he urged Mr. Pettingill to ask a recess so that she might have a respite; but the lawyer whispered:

‘She's doing all right. She's licking him.'

Harland began, as time passed, to see that this was true. Quinton skipped back and forth over the whole fabric of Ruth's testimony, attacking with a question here, another there, like a trapped animal seeking some weak spot in the pen in which it is confined, and he pounded hard always on the point of her love for Harland. ‘Do you love him now? Did you love him when you married him? Did you love him a week before you married him? A month before? A year before?' Ruth's very serenity drove him to helpless fury. He was red and perspiring, his voice high and shrill. At the constantly reiterated question there were occasional titters from the tense-strung spectators, till Judge Andrus warned them to silence. The newspaper men and women at their long table finally stopped trying to record the testimony, watching Quinton's labors with a dry, amused scorn, till at last he cried:

‘Now see here, Mrs. Harland. You've dodged long enough. You can answer a simple question, and I demand that you do so. just when did you fall in love with Mr. Harland?'

Ruth hesitated, and suddenly she smiled. ‘If you had ever loved anyone finely and cleanly, Mr. Quinton,' she said in clear tones, 'you would know how impossible any answer is. Love is not an explosion, an impact, a blow. It begins slowly, in little sweet ways, continuing to grow through many hours and days,
continuing through long happy lifetimes to grow and to develop and to become stronger and more beautiful all the time. I love Dick more today than I ever did, and I shall love him more and more every day until I die.'

Quinton was beaten, and he had the wit to know it; yet he could not resist one last word. ‘Then you began to love him long ago,‘ he said, and before she could speak, he added quickly: ‘That's all!'

Ruth looked inquiringly at Mr. Pettingill; and he came to meet her and to escort her back to her chair again. The deference in his movements was eloquent beyond any words, and every eye followed Ruth till she was seated. Then Mr. Pettingill turned and said quietly:

‘Mr. Harland, will you take the stand?'