We imagine a little gasp as the gun, with the garter looped round one of the triggers, was held before Molly’s eyes.
“You swung it on the coroner that the Marquis looped the garter round the trigger — then put the two barrels in his mouth — like this — then put his foot in the loop — like this — and blew his own head off.”
“He did... he did I tell you! I saw him.”
“I know you said you saw him. Now I’m going to show you something... Open the window, Norris.” He broke the gun, took a single cartridge from his pocket and inserted it. “Now hold the gun, Norris. Point it high. Now — watch this, Molly. Here’s the Marquis putting his foot through the loop. See?”
Tarrant pulled the garter. There came a report as the gun discharged itself harmlessly through the open window. Then Tarrant swung the gun round and held the muzzle of the twin barrels close under the nose of the Marchioness of Roucester and Jarrow.
“Keep still — I’m not going to hurt you. Smell those barrels. Which one has just carried the charge? The right barrel! Go on — smell it! Put your finger in and you’ll find it’s warm — and dirty.”
“What’re you doing to me? Take that gun away!”
“The garter fired the right barrel,” said Tarrant. “But it was proved by the position of the wound that the Marquis was killed by the left barrel.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then I’ll tell you. You killed that woman yourself. Then by some trick of your own you got the Marquis to put the barrel in his own mouth as if he were going to shoot himself. But it was you who pressed the trigger and killed him. And when he was dead you wiped the triggers for fingerprints and then you took the garter from the dead man’s leg and looped it round the wrong trigger. And then you—”
“Oh, all right! I did it for my kid’s sake — God help me! And now it’s all for nothing I don’t care what happens to me.”
They arrested her and took her away. And then a rather dreadful little thing happened — while they were charging her.
“Name?” asked the Charge-Sergeant.
“No good asking me,” said Molly. “Ask this gentleman here — he knows all about the law. I was Molly Webster before that dirty little skunk married me.”
“The name is Molly Stranack, Marchioness of Roucester and Jar-row,” said Tarrant and then: “I asked you to look at the certificates, Lady Roucester. Perhaps you’d like to look at them now. Date of marriage between Phyllis Margaret and Stranack, the Marquis — June 30th, 1900. Death of Marthe Celeste Jan. 22nd, 1901. Marthe being alive at the time, the marriage to Phyllis Margaret was not a marriage at all. She could have prosecuted the Marquis for bigamy. But she couldn’t have shaken your title — or your son’s succession.”
“Then, after all, there was no need to—”
“None whatever — my lady,” said Tarrant and then Molly burst into tears, probably the first she had shed since babyhood. Tarrant, he said afterwards, could not stand the sight of her grief and bolted back to his office where Norris was waiting for him — a flushed and very nearly indignant young Norris.
“I say, sir! That garter — in the photo of the gun taken at the time it’s looped round the left trigger. Look here!”
“Is it!” said Tarrant. “Then it must be my fault. I remember unfastening it in the train going down. I must have put it back on the wrong trigger. Very careless of me, Norris. Always replace things exactly as you find them. But, after all, it doesn’t alter the fact that she murdered her husband and that woman. And I’m afraid she’ll be hanged.”
But here Tarrant was wrong. Molly, the indisputably genuine Marchioness, was also the hereditary gamine who knew a trick or two for evading the vigilance of the cops. She had smuggled in a phial of medinal tablets, harmless enough if taken one at a time but fatal if swallowed en masse.
Extradition
by Brett Halliday
According to N. Y. Penal Law, Section 2445, the husband or wife of an accused person is in all cases a competent witness, but neither husband nor wife can be compelled to disclose a confidential communication made by one to the other during their marriage. This rule of evidence does not exist, however, in detective-story law. So, by editorial edict, we now compel Airs. Brett Halliday, better known to her own appreciative audience as Helen McCloy, to take the stand and disclose confidential opinions about her husband.
“Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?” we ask Mrs. Halliday.
“I do,” she replies in her low but firm voice.
“What is your husband’s occupation?”
“He is a writer.”
“Will you tell the jury which part of your husband’s writing is best known?”
“I would say the Michael Shayne stories. They’ve appeared in magazines, books, movies, and on the radio.”
“Do you consider the Michael Shayne stories your husband’s best work?”
Mrs. Halliday ponders. Then she replies: “No. I think Shayne stories are very good of their type, but my husband has written a series of engineering tales which in my opinion are among the finest modern detective short stories.”
“That is your considered opinion?”
“Yes, indeed. I have said so in print.”
“Will you be good enough to mention the title of one of these engineering stories and tell us what you said about it in print?”
“Well, perhaps the best one was called ‘Human Interest Stuff.’ It was reprinted by Ellery Queen in his magazine and in one of his anthologies. You see, my husband began his professional life as an engineer and he has retained from his earlier vocation that sense of design which is so important to an engineer and an architect and equally to a writer. In ‘Human Interest Stuff’ the denouement accomplishes what too few detective stories do — not only to surprise the reader but also to emphasize the tragic resolution of the conflict between the hunter and the hunted, with the life of one and the integrity of the other at stake. In other words, the story does not depend for its effect on surprise alone. It is, more importantly, a story of true realism, with that suggestion of a quiet, impersonally brutal fate which one of the first realists, Turgeniev, believed the essence of life itself.”
“Does the story have any other significance?”
“Yes, I think it does. When you read a short mystery story like ‘Human Interest Stuff,’ you can’t help wondering if the humble mystery, so neglected by serious critics, may not really be the beginning of a movement back to design in writing. Remember that the serious novel itself began with the reading matter of the people, of the masses.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Halliday. Your witness.”
But the opposing counsel is wise enough to let well enough alone. He recognizes the truth when he hears it, and waives cross-examination.
Only one further item of evidence need be introduced. Brett Holliday’s prize-winning story, “Extradition,” is cut of the same cloth out of which the author wove “Human Interest Stuff.” Like that story and like “Big Shot” which also appeared in EQMM, “Extradition” represents the sincerest writing that has come from Brett Holliday’s fertile typewriter.