Only in New England : the story of a gaslight crime (24 page)

of his invalid father, as described here this morning by the Reverend Palding?"

"Humph! Palding is a constipated old weasel and a fraud. He—"

"Doctor Hatfield, I must remind you that this is a courtroom hearing."

"I'm sorry, Your Honor. All right. I take it back. The Reverend Palding, as he calls himself, is not constipated. As a matter of fact, the last time he requested my professional services—"

"Doctor Hatfield! Will you please restrict your replies to the questions put by Counsel."

"Certainly. What was the question? Was I aware . . . ?"

"That the defendant's attitude toward his mother was incurred by her neglect of his invalid father."

"No, I wasn't aware of that, because I didn't think the old man was neglected. It was three flights up to his room, and he was ringing the bell all the time. You can't take care of—"

"Excuse me, Doctor, but you have answered. My next question is: If you did change your mind about Mrs. Abby Bridewell's death—that is, you rather belatedly came to the conclusion she did not die by accident—why didn't you promptly report it to the authorities?"

"I did."

"Before the funeral?"

"Yes."

"Then it was your report that caused the State's Attorney General to act?"

"I did file a report with the Attorney General's office."

"Order in the court! The Bench will not tolerate these outbursts of whispering."

"Now, Doctor, this question. Aren't you in debt to the defendant Earnest Bridewell?"

"If you call a mortgage being in debt."

"Isn't it a rather sizable mortgage?"

"The interest rates are sizable."

"Haven't you owed interest payments for some time?"

"Yes, but Mr. Bridewell agreed to—"

"As a matter of fact, aren't there two mortgages held by him on your Quahog Point property?"

"A first and second, yes."

"And you are in arrears on both?"

"With his consent at compound interest."

"Isn't the property of Wilbur Hatfield—the Notary Public—also mortgaged to Earnest Bridewell?"

"I don't mind my cousin's business."

"Didn't your brother, Rufus Hatfield, run against Earnest Bridewell for Senator last election?"

"Yes, but I don't see—"

"No further questions."

"Will Mrs. Smeizer please take the stand."

"You are already sworn, Mrs. Smeizer. You are still under oath."

"I'll tell the truth."

"Please do, Mrs. Smeizer, in answer to this question. . . . Isn't it a fact that you and your husband, Harold, have long been in debt to the Bridewells?"

"We owed the Trawler Company a few dollars for a boat, yes."

"And in talking with some neighbors at the Post Office one day this spring, didn't you call Mrs. Abby Bridewell a rich old pussycat and haven't you referred to her behind her back as Tabby Abby?"

"Well, I—I don't remember."

"Isn't it a fact that on another occasion you told the ladies of your sewing circle that Mr. Earnest Bridewell had been pressing your husband on a loan, and that Mr. Bridewell was a tight-fisted, dirty skinflint, and you didn't like him?"

"But I do like Earnest Bridewell! I do!"

"Order in the Court! I ask the door guard to remove that person who just 'meowed.' Any more catcalls from the back row and I will order the court cleared. . . . Proceed with this witness."

"No more questions."

"Defense calls Mrs. Floss Bridewell."

"Do you solemnly swear . . . ?"

"I do."

"You are the defendant's wife?"

"Yes."

Floss Bridewell gave a good account of herself on the stand. Through her prompt and forthright answers, she convinced me, at least, that she merited the appellation of "better half." Under lengthy questioning and sharp cross-questioning she told a straight story. One that must have sounded loyal and sincere. If she missed a large hole in the middle of her account, a novelist was to blame. I could only hope that a book of mine might be as fascinating. To wit:

Earnest's wife stated that on the evening of Tuesday, April 11, her husband came home around six o'clock. Was he sober? To her he seemed "perfectly sober." She gave him his supper. Then he repaired to the sitting room to listen to the reading of a novel. The title? The Prisoner of Zenda. Anthony Hope. Antoinette de Mau-ban was in a loose white robe, her dark hair streamed over her shoulders, her face was ghastly pale, and her eyes gleamed wildly in the light of the torches. In her shaking hand she held a revolver, and as she tottered forward she fired it at Rupert Hentzau.

Earnest liked to be read to. Floss's old father and mother, residing for the time with their daughter, listened in. (The prosecution might have given Earnest's wife a hard time about the couple, for the old lady was extremely near-sighted, and the old man was admittedly very deaf. Obvious question: How did he listen in?) That was the scene. Floss reading. Earnest and the old couple in their chairs.

About eight-thirty P.M. (Floss's testimony) Earnest left the room and went out to water the horse. According to his wife, he was gone about fifteen or twenty minutes. When he returned, he took his chair, and listened to the end of the book. About ten o'clock the family retired. Earnest did not leave the house during the night.

Under cross-questioning, Floss Bridewell stated that her husband had usually slept at Mrs. Abby Bridewell's house while old

Captain Nathan was alive. Had only stayed there a few times since his father's death.

Bolivar Dodd (cross-examining): "Mrs. Bridewell. Did you not call on a neighbor, Sally Ross, and ask her to say that she saw your husband come home sober at six o'clock the evening of his mother's murder?"

"I did, because Sally did see him. I thought it ought to be known. When I heard the things Mrs. Smeizer was saying, I thought my husband would need help."

"No further questions."

"The defense calls Walter Jones."

"Walter, I want you to tell us what you did on the evening before Mrs. Abby Bridewell was found dead, and on the morning that followed when her body was found."

I have already told that portion of Walter's courtroom story. But in reconstructing his inquest testimony, I went no further in my research than his bedtime retirement and subsequent appearance next morning on the kitchen porch. No, he had heard nothing during the night. Had been aroused by Earnest Bridewell shouting at Cudworth to fetch the doctor. Had peeked down at the body in the cellar when Doctor Hatfield arrived. Then had run to town to send the telegram to Senator Bridewell's brother.

"Now, Walter, after you sent that telegram what did you do?"

"I ran back to the house."

"What did you see?"

"Doc Hatfield was just leaving and Mr. Bridewell and Mrs. Ord was in the yard."

"Anyone else?"

"Mrs. Smeizer."

"What then occurred?"

"Mr. Bridewell and Mrs. Ord went back into the house. I didn't want to, on account of the body."

"You stayed out in the yard?"

"Yes."

"With Mrs. Smeizer?"

"That's right. She went this way with her finger, and I went up to her."

"She beckoned to you, wagging her finger?"

"Like I showed. So I went up to her."

"What did she want?"

"Me to walk home with her. She said she was nervous after what happened to old Mrs. Bridewell. So I walked with her. Across the road and up."

"What did she say to you, Walter?"

"She asked what did I know about Mrs. Bridewell being killed."

"And you said?"

"I didn't know nothin'."

"Then?"

"She asked me did I know about Mr. Earnest Bridewell having fights with his mother. I said I guessed they'd had some, like."

"What did Mrs. Smeizer tell you then?"

"She told me she was going to get even." *

"Will you speak up louder, please. I would like the Judge to hear you."

"Mrs. Smeizer said she was going to get even. She said her and her friends would fix him now. She said this was her chance to get square with Mr. Senator Earnest Bridewell."

"Order! Order! Order! Everybody sit down. This is the last demonstration the Bench will tolerate in this courtroom!"

"State's witness."

"No questions."

"That's all right, Walter, you can go now."

I could visualize State's Attorney Bolivar Dodd standing there like a frustrated exclamation point. How could a prosecution lawyer grill a kid on the stand? Especially a homeless orphan.

But, thirty years later, I had in mind a cross-question. And I'd have given a lot to know the answer.

When Walter Jones took the witness stand, was he wearing a new corduroy suit?

*
Verbatim quote from the records.

Two final defense witnesses. Surprise! The bright pennies in the birthday cake. By way of anticlimax, their contribution was a two-cents' worth. But it added up to a nice finishing touch. Probably an astute one, too. Squires Bibbs and Coulter were doubtless unwilling to risk a decision on the testimony of a minor.

So the defense called to the witness stand a Mr. Victor McVest, and after him, a Mr. Marvey Garvy. I would have appreciated a mental picture of the two. But in reading their statements, I could only draw a blank. Two expressionless vacancies. Rather like a pair of weather-beaten ciphers. Down East version of Tweedledee and Tweedledum. They hailed from New Bedford.

McVest was a cattle dealer. Garvy was his assistant. On the evening of April 11, the pair had been combing the fields on the south side of Quahog Point 'looking for southdown sheep." Following a path through the bayberry, the stock men skirted the south-side place occupied by Earnest Bridewell and his wife. About half past eight, McVest was approaching the gate. He saw a man (the defendant) come out of the house with a bucket in his hand. McVest called to the man. The man came up and they chatted for several minutes. (About what? The conversation was not specified.) McVest went on with the sheep-hunt. Joined Garvy in the lower field. About rmie-thirty or ten o'clock, they came back to the road and walked past the same house. Both McVest and Gravy sighted the Senator standing at a front window "smoking a pipe."

Bolivar Dodd did his best. But his cross-examination failed to shake either witness. Both men were positive in their assertions. McVest had seen Earnest Bridewell manifestly about to water a horse at eight-thirty. And Garvy as well as McVest had seen the defendant at a lighted window on south-side locale "about nine-thirty or ten."

Reading the above testimony from the distance of today, it strikes one as far from decisive. It contains the same hole that appears in the testimony offered by the defendant's wife. Namely, the time element of Earnest's departure and return from "watering the horse." Floss Bridewell supposed "fifteen or twenty minutes." But people who have read The Prisoner of Zenda recall it

as a book they could not put down. Could it have been possible that Floss lost herself somewhere between Ruritania and Lower Strelsau in the never-never country close to Graustark? And could it have been that her deaf old father went to the window between nine-thirty and ten, pipe in teeth? No one will ever know.

It is hard to doubt the word of two New Bedford men. Even though they be cattle dealers.

Vernon Bibbs, Esq., faced the courtroom and boomed, "Lionel Bridewell please take the stand."

No answer.

"I call Lionel Bridewell!"

State's Attorney Dodd, rising: "It was not understood by the witness that he would be recalled."

Bibbs sends a glare on a slow sweep across the courtroom, left to right. Then he stalks to the defense table for consulation with Erasmus T. G. Coulter. The two lawyers make a show of head-shakes and chin-wagging. Then Bibbs holds out his hands to the Bench as though about to launch an appeal. Instead, he drops his arms in a gesture of resignation.

"The defense rests."

Bolivar Dodd came down the home stretch limping. There was really not much left for him that day. But he had to follow the courtroom protocol with a final run of witnesses. These were minor and did nothing to reinforce his tottering case.

"The State rests."

An expected recess did not eventuate. After a pointed glance at the clock, Judge Mather P. Cottonwood ruled that thirty minute summations were now to begin.

As usual defense summarized first. Coulter took the floor. He began by speaking of the case's immense importance. The fantastic atrocity charged against the defendant. Matricide! The murder of one's mother. Heaven forbid that such a crime should stain the pages of this fair State's history. He was happy to feel that his client was innocent of so hideous a felony. Nay, he knew the defendant was innocent. The State had been unable to show the slightest connection between Mr. Earnest Bridewell and the death of his aged mother. Rumor—gossip—vengeful calumny—these were the witnesses who had spoken against the accused. It was sheer persecution. Malice. Slander without equal in local memory.

"Defense is sorry to learn that there are people in this fair State who are so revengeful that they color their testimony at whim and do not hesitate to commit rank perjury. Consider the statements made by a trusted neighbor. I refer to Mrs. Smeizer."

Coulter reviewed Mrs. Smeizer's testimony. He denounced it as a pack of falsehoods dealt by a harpy determined to "get even." It was obvious, said Coulter, that a camarilla had joined forces to undo Earnest Bridewell. Political chicanery motivated this group. Quahog Point had long suffered from a faction controlled by the Hatfields. Who could doubt that this faction drove the knife of Brutus into the back of honest Caesar. But these Cata-lines were spurred by a deeper motive. Almost all who spoke against the defendant were his debtors. And then there was his own brother—"a man of mystery"—most treacherous of all. Where was he —Lionel Bridewell—at the climax of his brother's ordeal? Gone! Fled! Doubtless with the mantle of shame drawn across his eyes. But this Judas brother who would sell out his own flesh and blood, betray his next of kin, would never reap the thirty pieces of silver—to wit, the estate he clearly hoped to gain through his brother's removal to the gallows. Ah, this was the unkindest cut of all. Worse than Brutus. Worse than Iscariot. This was the blow of Cain.