The Magician's Wife

22

Mr. Kuhn was brief in his opening statement, a bit regretful, and devastatingly to the point. The state, he said, would prove that the defendant “killed the deceased while riding beside him, by the simple trick of jerking the wheel of his car, jumping clear when it swerved, and leaving him to plunge, by a momentum he couldn’t arrest, over a bank that collapsed under him, into eight feet of water.” Her motives, he went on, were crude, “but wholly comprehensible, if also wholly wicked.” First, she wanted revenge “on a man who had been her lover, but who on the death of his father had reconsidered his mode of life, and decided to patch up his marriage if he could. This man had a wife, as the defendant knew he had from her first meeting with him, as the wife introduced her to him.” Second she wanted cash, “twenty-five thousand dollars in insurance she stood to collect, provided his death took place before the policy lapsed — and it still had two months to run.” Then piece by piece he fitted his case together, stressing that “this was no caprice, no sudden fit of temper,” and citing an episode in the nightclub, “where the defendant nagged and urged and goaded the deceased to climb a ladder, to observe, as she told him, if overhead rails were level, but actually in the hope he would fall — and break his neck.” In a shocked, low voice, Mr. Kuhn added: “He did fall — he did not break his neck.” And then, he went on, “she took her last desperate step — intruded herself into his car and flung him down to his death.” He admitted that nobody saw this, that “our case is circumstantial.” Nevertheless, he said, “there was a witness, silent, but eloquent, in the shape of a seat belt, which was fastened, but jammed back of the seat.” But his best witness, he concluded, would be the defendant herself, who had scarcely reached the hospital “before she began making statements, copious statements, to the police — every one of which turned out false.”

He elected to start with “background,” and his first witness was Sally. A thready tremor of fear wriggled through Clay’s heart as the bailiff called: “Mrs. Sally Gorsuch,” and wriggled again as she whirled in front of him, where he sat in the same seat he had had the day before. She was in a black wool suit and soft black felt hat, and made a pale, ladylike picture as she climbed to the witness box, held up her hand to swear, and gave her name in a quiet voice, so quiet that Judge Warfield admonished her, “Louder, Mrs. Gorsuch — speak so the jury can hear.” Under Mr. Kuhn’s skillful questioning, she told the story of her marriage, how as a high-school student she had met a young magician, gone to work in his act, and married him. “Then, very soon,” she went on, “I was expecting my child and couldn’t work any more. He needed someone, and I remembered a girl who’d been in looking for work, who had a pretty figure, and was about the right size — a magician’s assistant has to be small, so she can climb into baskets, slip out of cabinets, and so on, without having to squeeze. Her name was Edith Conlon — she’s sitting right over there. I sent for her and introduced her to him.”

After that Sally’s manner changed. With eyes on the floor, face pinking up, she went on: “Then in just a few days I began to suspect my husband, and rumors began reaching me. I accused him then and made him admit the truth, that he was unfaithful to me, with Edith. I locked my door from then on, and we were married in name only. Then, after some time, at least two years, I would say, my husband’s father died, and his attitude seemed to change. He began hinting that we should ‘make up,’ as he called it. To that I said nothing, and don’t know now how I felt. I had been horribly hurt, and whether I could forget, even though I forgave, I have no idea at all. But I thought I should listen to him and to give him the chance to talk. To get things started somehow, I told him one day that as I would be up that night much later than usual, entertaining my mother at dinner, with two friends I had also invited, we could talk after they left — if he could come home early. I meant, as he well understood, if he omitted his visit to Edith. And he said: ‘It’s a date.’ It was the last time I saw him alive. He didn’t come at all, and I supposed he had changed his mind. But next day came the horrible news that he was dead. And next night, Mr. Kuhn, came the still more horrible news that Edith had seen my car, or had told the police that she had, driving away from the accident. And the day after that I found, tucked away in my husband’s desk, a bill for insurance premiums on a policy I knew nothing about!”

Sally’s voice became strident, and her eyes took on a glitter not quite so ladylike. During her recital, as the words “suspect,” “rumor,” “admit,” and “suppose” kept getting into it, the judge looked toward Mr. Pender, as Clay did, apparently assuming he would object. However, he didn’t. He said nothing until it was his turn to cross-examine, and then, after studying his notes as though baffled, he asked: “Mrs. Gorsuch, when you found this bill for insurance premiums, what did you do about it?”

“I — had it looked into at once.”

“By whom, if you don’t mind?”

“... By — the police, of course.”

“Why the police?”

“Well, why not? They were in charge, weren’t they?”

“Object!” exclaimed Mr. Kuhn, as though bored. “What she did is evidence. Why she did it is immaterial, incompetent, and irrelevant, as counsel well knows.”

“Withdraw the question,” said Mr. Pender.

Once more consulting his notes, and once more seemingly puzzled, he asked: “Did you, Mrs. Gorsuch, before calling the police, call the insurance company?”

“No — I had no reason to.”

“No reason? On finding a premium bill for insurance payable, now that your husband was dead? And possibly payable to you?”

“It was payable to her, Mr. Pender. To Edith.”

“Did it so state on the bill?”

“... I — don’t just now recollect.”

“What difference does it make?” asked Mr. Kuhn. “We have the bill. Here it is — take it, Nat. Enter it as an exhibit — let her see it — and let’s get on!”

“I can try my own case, thanks.”

“I’m not much impressed,” said the judge, “by sparring matches between counsels. If it matters, Mr. Pender, why can’t the bill be entered?”

“What matters,” said Mr. Pender, “is this witness — her animus against the defendant, her part in this prosecution, and above all, her veracity.”

“You mean, if she knew the beneficiary—?”

“She knew about the insurance.”

“You may answer,” the judge told Sally.

“Did the bill name Miss Conlon?” asked Mr. Pender.

“I said I don’t recollect!”

Sally almost screamed it, her eyes flashing at Mr. Pender, so several jurors leaned forward in surprise, seeing a woman very different from the quiet widow in black who had first taken the stand. And even the judge frowned. “Mrs. Gorsuch,” he said quietly, “this passes credence. You’re not on trial here — you can’t decide which questions you answer and which you don’t. You’re a witness for the state, and you’re under oath. You must answer or be found in contempt.”

“All right, then, it didn’t.”

“Then you already knew who the beneficiary was?”

“All right, suppose I did?”

“And you did know about the insurance — it was not something you knew nothing about, as you so affectingly told us just a few moments ago?”

“What difference does that make?”

Mr. Kuhn barked it, but Mr. Pender answered mildly: “None — except to make her admit — let the jury hear her admit — that in one respect at least she has not been telling the truth.”

“Answer,” said the judge.

“All right, but it slipped my mind!” Sally snapped it peevishly, but two of the jurors laughed.

“And so you called the police?”

“I certainly did.”

“With the first evidence against Miss Conlon?”

“But not the last, Mr. Pender. And so you get it straight, anything I could do to help convict her, that woman sitting there, who tried to put this on me, I did do, and mean to keep on doing.”

Hand-clapping broke out in the rear of the court, and the bailiff banged his gavel. But the jurors stared at Sally, struck once more, perhaps, by her vitriolic manner. “Thank you,” said Mr. Pender.

“Is that all?” asked Sally.

“No, Mrs. Gorsuch. Not quite.”

Mr. Pender now began probing the marriage and why it had broken up. Once more Mr. Kuhn objected, and as the judge turned to him Mr. Pender reflected a moment and then began to talk. “Your honor,” he said, “the defense hasn’t opened its case, and so I haven’t outlined what it’s going to be. But in the light of these objections, it might be well if I cleared things up a bit. Left to my own devices, I would have preferred a simple defense, the immemorial stratagem of shooting this case full of holes, having Miss Conlon say nothing, and let the jury’s good sense give this preposterous accusation the rebuke it so richly deserves. However, I’m stopped: my client won’t have this defense. She won’t come to court and let me, as she feels, tacitly admit her guilt ‘except that they can’t prove it.’ She insists on the defense she has made from the beginning, that she saw Mrs. Gorsuch’s car at the scene of the death, that this car, by sneaking up without lights and suddenly blowing its horn, caused the deceased to swerve, and thereby killed him. That’s what she told the police, and that’s what, says the state, ‘turned out to be false.’ And I thought it was, I confess. I tried to persuade her of the part imagination might have played in what she saw that night, and I tried in vain. And then, and then” — here Mr. Pender let emotion creep into his voice — “it devolved on me, became my duty to her, to look around a bit, to ascertain if evidence existed that her story could be true. Not only, I emphasize, that she thinks she’s speaking the truth. That I’ve never doubted. But also that the truth could be as she speaks it!”

“Anything can be,” said Judge Warfield sharply.

“Except, says the state, Mrs. Gorsuch’s guilt.”

“She’s not on trial, I remind you.”

“I hope not — I don’t want the job of proving her guilt. My job is to prove reasonable doubt of Miss Conlon’s guilt, on the basis of Mrs. Gorsuch’s possible guilt! ‘Anything can be,’ as your honor so cogently says, but this parcel of guilt has been placed out of reach by the state, up high on a separate shelf, with a don’t-open-until-Christmas sticker on it. Your honor, I must open it up. I must know what’s inside. I must be allowed to find out.”

“Suppose nothing’s inside?” asked Mr. Kuhn.

“Then Miss Conlon will pay, very dearly.”

“If you have a case?” Mr. Kuhn barely murmured it, but Mr. Pender took him up quickly. “Ah, yes,” he cut in. “We know this ancient adage: ‘If you have a case, try it — if not, try your accusers.’ There’s another, still more ancient, one of the oldest our language knows: ‘Murder will out!’ The defense doesn’t fear this ancient saw — it wants this murder out in the open, where it belongs. Why does the state insist on tying it up?”

“Objection withdrawn,” said Mr. Kuhn.

“Proceed,” said Judge Warfield.

“Mrs. Gorsuch,” said Mr. Pender, “could we go back just a bit to your husband’s change of attitude after his father died. Did he say anything to you that explained his reason for this?”

“Well, I don’t know. He was upset.”

“By — grief, could we say?”

“Why, yes. Of course. Naturally.”

“At the millions he now stood to inherit?”

But once more Mr. Kuhn objected. “In the name of God,” he asked, “what do the millions have to do with this case?”

“May it please the court,” said Mr. Pender, “I’m glad the state has asked. The millions could have been — I don’t say they were, but they could have been — the motive this lady had to wish her husband dead.” And then solicitously, colloquially, to Mr. Kuhn: “You remember them motives, don’t you? Miss Conlon’s yen for revenge? On a guy that done her wrong? He done Mrs. Gorsuch wrong, as a faithless husband to her, and we’ve had one flash already of her vindictive spirit. The money Miss Conlon would make — remember the cash? The twenty-five thousand bucks? Mrs. Gorsuch stood to make millions by her husband’s death. Your case, my young friend, has boomeranged.”

“I’d say yours is sheer name-blackening.”

“Yes,” said Judge Warfield. “So far, Mr. Pender, with nothing to back it up except the claim that it ‘could be,’ that’s about all it amounts to. Once again, anything can be.”

“Your honor, I have positive evidence.”

“I must have some clue to its nature before I let you proceed with this line of questioning. So far, it’s only a smear.”

“Its nature, your honor, is simple. The state makes quite a point about the police, how they proved the statements false that Miss Conlon made to them. I’ll show, however, that far from proving them false, they actually proved nothing at all — except that a car was parked in the Gorsuch drive the night the deceased met his end, that it was of the same color, type, and make as the car Mrs. Gorsuch drove, such a car, I may add, as could have been had by rental from a dozen agencies here, none of which was checked by the police. The police say they tried this ‘stunt,’ as they call it, of driving up without lights on the stretch of road in question, and report ‘it can’t be done — anyone trying it would surely break his neck.’ Well, that’s what they think. But I’ll bring a witness, your honor, who’ll tell how it was done, a few nights before the fatal one, by a car which pulled up on him, also without lights, blew its horn at him as Miss Conlon says the horn was blown at Gorsuch — and forced him off the road. What with one thing and another, when Miss Conlon had told her story and been disbelieved by the police, he communicated with me instead of with them. He thinks, as Miss Conlon and the deceased were both at work in their nightclub the night this happened to him, that it was a practice run, preliminary to the real one, the one that caused Gorsuch’s death — and I happen to think so too. Or in other words, your honor, the police did nothing at all to check the obvious possibility that Mrs. Gorsuch had a confederate, to whom she lent her car that night, and who—”

“Wait! Can you produce a confederate?”

“No, your honor. For some reason I can only conjecture, perhaps electrophobia, he hasn’t come forward yet. He could exist, however. He could be sitting right now in this very courtroom. Who are you looking at?”

Mr. Pender ripped it at Sally, whose eyes had sought Clay’s, and she at once ripped back: “Who says I’m looking at anyone? What are you getting at? What are you trying to say?”

“MR. PENDER!”

Judge Warfield’s tone wasn’t loud, but it filled the whole room. Obviously he was furious, and he went on: “I fine you one hundred dollars for contempt of this court.”

“I apologize, your honor.”

“I’ll stand for no cheap, theatrical tricks of the kind you just indulged in, no booby-trapping of witnesses, no grand stand plays for the jury’s benefit. You know better than that, Mr. Pender.”

“I regret my outbreak, sir.”

“It was not an outbreak. It was deliberate.”

“I’m sorry. That I have to deny.”

The judge was stern, but so was Mr. Pender. Taking out his wallet, he walked over to the bailiff and handed him a bill. “Have I permission to proceed?” he asked.

“As admonished, you have.”

“Mrs. Gorsuch,” he asked, “when I uttered the word ‘confederate,’ you looked at someone in the courtroom. May I ask who that person was?”

“That’s better,” said the judge.

“Well, Mr. Pender,” said Sally, uncrossing and recrossing her very pretty legs, “I did look away, that’s true, but what at, I disrecollect — not anything, that I recall. All it amounted to was: I was sick of looking at you.”

The crowd laughed.

Judge Warfield laughed.

Mr. Kuhn laughed. Mr. Pender laughed.

Clay’s heart had skipped a beat when Sally’s eyes drilled at him, and he had had a constricted sensation, as though he couldn’t breathe. He had been feeling exultant while she was being clobbered, but now had a horrible suspicion that the clobbering was going too far, that it would soon get out of hand. At lunch he wanted to suggest that “we put the brakes on a little,” but Mr. Pender wouldn’t see him, being huddled at first with Mike Dominick and then with two other men. He ate at a table alone, and all through the afternoon was in a nervous sweat while Mr. Pender continued with Sally, scoring various points, mainly as he provoked her to a succession of ill-humored outbreaks, all sharply at variance with the wan, wilted widow she had seemed to be at first. But at last she was excused, and his spirits came up fast as Mr. Pender went grimly on, taking an insurance man over the jumps, as well as a city detective, who defended his work on the case, saying, “We deal with what is, not what might be, Mr. Pender — like his honor says, that could be anything, including snowballs in — wherever you’re going next time.” He was fairly sullen and made everyone laugh, including, once more, Mr. Pender. Clay was really bucked up when adjournment finally came, and his arm was caught going out as Mr. Pender whispered: “We got ’em on the run — it’s really looking good. Hey, maybe it was the truth, what that dame said — Buster, I’m talking about. That would be something, wouldn’t it? Me, believing my own case!”

Grace fed him and loved him and held his head to her breast, all the while murmuring encouragement: “What difference does it make who got clobbered today or how much? All that matters is Buster and getting her off. Once she’s in the clear, we’ll forget this dreadful mess, as we forget a dream. We’ve both done our share — and I’d like to remind you, Clay, twelve and a half thousand dollars aren’t peanuts in anyone’s court. We’ve done plenty already — I as well as you. And we’ll continue that way — we’ll do what has to be done to get this girl off. Once that’s out of the way, the sun comes up once more!”

He was comforted and replied in amiable growls, suggesting around nine that “we call it off and go to bed.” She agreed, and they got up from her modernist sofa, where they had been lying close, and started toward her bedroom. But before they reached it the buzzer sounded, and she went to open the door. Sally was in the hall, still in her black wool suit, her face twisted with rage. Coming in, she advanced on Clay and snarled at him: “You did that to me! You’re in cahoots with that guy! I’ve seen you with him — don’t pretend you had nothing to do with it! Well, let me tell you something. You—”

“Let me tell you something!”

Grace stepped in between and for a few moments told Sally off, for her “rotten, vindictive nature,” which left your father aghast, frightened Mr. El, froze poor Alec so he walked out on you, and finally brought you to this, the shadow of the electric chair! You—!”

With surprising dexterity for one so gracefully slim, she jerked Sally to her knees and began slapping her face. Sally screamed and cursed at her. At that, she really hooked things up. Holding Sally by the head, her hand clutching the soft felt hat, she slapped and slapped hard, so one of Sally’s cheeks was suddenly red. Then: “Get up!” she snapped, stepping back. And when Sally rose: “Get out!”

“Go to hell, you poor mope. I’ll go when I—”

Another slap cut that off, and then she grabbed Sally and hustled her to the door. Opening it, she pushed her out. But Sally, turning to Clay, snarled: “Not so fast. I still haven’t told him what I came here to say! That shadow she’s talking about, it’s big enough for two. Try some more tricks, why don’t you! I’ll not go alone! Did you hear what I said?”

“We got ’em on the run. We must have or she wouldn’t have come. If she’s sweating blood, let her!”