“Are you a widower?” inquired the prosecutor.
“I am.”
“When did your wife die?”
“Four years ago.”
“State the circumstances of her illness, death and funeral.”
Roger complied in a precise voice. “Look at the accused. Did you ever see her before?”
The defendant returned Roger’s stare. Her eyes challenged him, bitter and defiant.
“Yes,” Roger said. “I saw her once.”
“Only once?”
“Yes.”
“When and where?”
“At the Seattle jail two months ago.”
“That is all. Thank you, Mr. Marsh.”
In cross-examination the defense counsel asked, “Do you now concede that your wife had a twin sister named Evelyn?”
“Recently,” Roger answered stiffly, “I’ve come to that conclusion.”
“That is all.”
Roger tried not to hurry as he left the courtroom. He had expected it to be worse. He’d thought the defense counsel would nag him for hours.
At his hotel room he picked up the rest of the trial by radio and printed word. Ten other Marylanders were called by the prosecution and all of them, with varying degrees of emphasis, denied that the defendant could be Caroline Marsh. All ten of them had seen Caroline buried. When the state rested, Eva Lang’s position seemed untenable.
Then the defense opened and the defendant herself took the stand. She told precisely the story she’d told Inspector Whipple from the beginning. Her lawyer produced ten Baltimore witnesses himself, people he’d hand-picked after a series of interviews there. People who were uncertain enough to answer, “I- don’t know.” One was a boy who, during the war, had delivered groceries to the Marsh home. He remembered peering into the kitchen once and seeing two women who looked just alike.
“Was the accused one of them?”
“I think so.”
“Is she Mrs. Marsh or the other one?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t know,” or, “I can’t be certain,” was a response given by nine others.
A former maid at the Marsh house was asked, “Is there a faint doubt in your mind as to whether the defendant is Mrs. Marsh?”
“I’m afraid there is. I don’t see how she could be Mrs. Marsh because they say Mrs. Marsh passed away. But she looks like her. I can’t be sure.”
Then came a bombshell. The defense called Mrs. Carey Marsh of Edgeton, Maryland.
“Are you Caroline Marsh’s Aunt Harriet?”
“I am.”
“You knew your niece quite well?”
“Of course.”
“Can you look at the accused and swear she isn’t your niece?”
“No,” Aunt Harriet said coolly, “because I’m not at all sure she isn’t.”
Later Aunt Harriet herself, marching straight to Roger’s room, explained the stand she had taken.
“How could you?” he demanded.
“How could I say anything else? How can I swear away her life? I’m not sure she’s Caroline. But I’m not sure she isn’t.”
He sat on the bed and stared at her balefully. “You’re not sure she isn’t?”
“And deep down in your heart, neither are you, Roger.”
“Are you crazy? Of course I’m sure.”
“Your pride’s sure,” she corrected. “Your stilt-necked Marsh pride made up its mind even before you went to Seattle. You went there to say no. And you said it.”
Dr. Cawfield and Leslie Paxton came storming in. “And that goes for the rest of you,” Aunt Harriet blazed. “You’re just like Carey. You don’t like scandals. Sensations make you sick. You’ll trust a cold gravestone, every time, before you’ll trust flesh and blood. Stop glaring at me, Leslie. Has the jury gone out yet?”
“It has,” Leslie said. He added with a grimace. “And you should have heard the judge charge them! ‘If a reasonable doubt exists in your minds,’ he said, ‘that the defendant is Eva Lang, you will not be justified in a verdict of guilty.’ ”
“Doubt!” snorted Dr. Cawfield. “It’s in their minds like a maggot. And you planted it, Harriet Marsh.”
“Don’t you bully me, Elias. They asked my opinion and I gave it. And maybe I’ll sleep better than the rest of you.” Aunt Harriet flounced out.
Roger packed his bags and taxied to the airport. He was in a fever to get out of town before reporters made a mass assault. From now on he didn’t want any part of the case. And whatever the verdict, to him Eva Lang would still be Eva Lang.
All through the flight to Baltimore the plane’s stewardess kept a radio on. A concert, then a newscast. No decision yet in the Detroit case. Passengers whispered, nudged each other, looked covertly at Roger Marsh. He sat there staring frigidly into space.
Half an hour before they reached Baltimore the flash came. The jury had reported. The verdict was “not guilty.”
It wasn’t over yet. Roger was dismally sure of it. Eva Lang was free and could never be tried again on this charge. But by trade she was a swindler. So was Duke Smedley. They’d already raided his good name; and now, given time, they’d try to raid his purse.
For a month Roger waited, dreading every ring of his phone. Would Eva contact him herself? Or would Duke Smedley do it? Probably not Smedley; being wanted on many old counts, he’d hardly dare come into the open.
Eva, Roger learned from the papers, was boldly in the open. She was still a celebrity and every move she made was publicized. The papers said she’d gone to a Florida hotel for a month’s rest.
But how could she finance a trip like that? A month at a Florida resort would be expensive. Eva Lang, the prisoner, had had no money. The courts had even had to appoint a public defender.
Roger saw only one answer. Duke Smedley. While she was in custody he couldn’t reach her. Now that she was free, he could and had.
This conclusion comforted Roger considerably. No doubt the police were watching Eva in hopes of picking up Smedley. And once Smedley was caught, the truth about Eva Lang would be known. For Smedley knew everything about her. He’d bridged the gap of those four years with her and so he knew, beyond a shadow of doubt, which of the twins she was.
A short time later came a report that the woman once known as Eva Lang was now in New York. She had taken an apartment as Caroline Blythe Marsh and had found herself a job. It was at the perfumery counter of a Fifth Avenue department store, exactly the job held by Caroline Blythe eight years ago when she met Roger Marsh of Baltimore.
Roger was alarmed and confused because it seemed out of character. A confidence woman doesn’t usually go to work. But Caroline Marsh, thrown on her own resources, would do exactly that. She’d try to get her last job back.
Night after night he lay awake, reviewing every step of what had happened, trying to refute the vague uncertainties that had crept into his mind. What if he’d been wrong? What if this woman he had denied were really Caroline, whose love had been the most wonderful thing in his life? He kept telling himself it couldn’t be.
But he had to know. Suddenly he realized that the entire scheme used in identifying Eva Lang had been faulty. They’d taken witnesses from Baltimore to look at her — to say whether she was or wasn’t Caroline Marsh. No such scheme could be conclusive! because it was based upon opinion rather than upon incontestible fact.
A proper scheme would be the reverse. Instead of people identifying Eva Lang, Eva Lang should be made to identify people. People who’d known Caroline well, and whom Evelyn had never seen, should be paraded before Eva Lang. Recognition should then be demanded, not by the witnesses, but by Eva Lang herself.
For instance, Eva Lang had never in her life seen Lucile Dutton. During the war Lucile had left Roger’s company to become a Wave. There’d never been a picture of her at the Marsh house. From a diary Evelyn could know about Lucile but definitely she had never seen her. Therefore Evelyn couldn’t possibly recognize Lucile.