“What does she say?” murmured Ellery.
Bill made a snorting, desperate sound. “Simplest explanation imaginable — so simple no one will believe it. Joe brought that damned desk-set home with him Friday night. Naturally, she wanted to see it. So she unwrapped it and looked it over. And that’s how her prints got on the metal parts. Beautiful, eh?” He laughed shortly. “And the only witness who can corroborate her statement is dead!”
“Oh, come now, Bill,” said Ella Amity in a light tone, “that does sound reasonable. Who wouldn’t believe that a gift from two people would be handled by both? The desk-set was from Joe and Lucy and, lo! Joe’s and Lucy’s prints are found on it. Why should a jury disbelieve that?”
“You heard that Wanamaker clerk on the stand. The set was bought by Joe — alone. It was wiped clean by the wrapper before being handed over. Joe wrote the gift card in the store himself. No hint of Lucy yet, is there? Then what? Joe went home. Can I prove that? No! True, he’d told me he was leaving Philadelphia the next morning, which implies that he meant to spend the night with Lucy; but implication isn’t proof and, considering the source, it’s biased testimony. No one saw him come home Friday night, no one saw him leave home Saturday morning. No one but Lucy, and you can’t expect a prejudiced jury to believe the unsupported word of a defendant.”
“They’re not prejudiced, Bill,” said the red-haired woman quickly.
“Good of you to lie. Have you been watching the pan of Juror Number 4? When I approved her I thought I had fertile ground there — fat, fifty, definitely middle-class, domestic... Now she turns raging female! Lucy’s too damned beautiful; she makes every woman who sees her squirm with envy. The others — Number 7’s got a tendency to cramps. How the hell was I to know that? He’s sore at the world. Ah, nuts.” Bill waved his arms.
They were silent, finding nothing to say. After a while Bill muttered, “It’s going to be a fight, all right.”
“You’re putting Lucy on the stand?” asked Ellery quietly.
“Heavens, man, she’s my only hope! I can’t dig up a witness to support her movie alibi nor one for the fingerprint business, so she’s got to testify herself. Maybe she’ll make a sympathetic witness.” He dropped onto a bench opposite them and ruffled his hair. “If she doesn’t, God help us both.”
“But, Bill,” objected Ella, “aren’t you being too pessimistic? I’ve pumped some of the legal talent floating around town, and they all think Pollinger’s got a poor jury case. It is circumstantial evidence, after all. There’s certainly enough reasonable doubt...”
Bill said patiently: “Pollinger’s a crack prosecutor. And he has last whack at the jury, don’t forget that — State sums up after the defense. Any experienced trial lawyer will tell you he’ll concede half his case just to leave the last impression on the minds of the jury. And then public opinion—” He scowled.
“What about public opinion?” demanded the woman indignantly.
“Oh, you’ve been a trump, Ella. But you haven’t the legal slant. You’ve no idea what harm was done by that insurance business.”
Ellery shifted on the bench. “The what?”
“Even before the case went to trial it leaked out that the National was withholding payment of the insurance to Lucy on grounds of suspicion that the beneficiary might have murdered the insured. Page one stuff. Old Hathaway made a speech about it to the reporters; he didn’t put it quite that way, but the inference was plain. Naturally, I tried to patch up some of the damage by filing suit in New York to compel payment of the policy. But that’s routine; the pivotal point is the outcome of the trial. Meanwhile, every potential juryman in the county read that story. The gang over at the Court House denied it, but they did.”
Ellery flipped a cigaret away. “What’s the defense, Bill?”
“Lucy herself to explain the fingerprint mess, her alibi, so on. You to bring out discrepancies unaccounted for by the prosecution. You’ll do that, of course, Ellery?” Bill asked suddenly.
“Don’t be a greater ass than you can help, Bill.”
“There’s one angle you can be of service on, El. The match-stubs.”
“Match-stubs?” Ellery blinked a little. “What about them? How?”
Bill jumped off the bench and began pacing again. “There’s no question that those stubs prove the murderess smoked while lying in wait for Gimball. It will be easy for me to prove that Lucy doesn’t smoke and never has. If I put you on the stand—”
“But, Bill,” said Ellery slowly, “there is a question about that. A very large question. So large, in fact, that there’s every logical indication that you’re completely wrong.”
Bill halted. “What’s that? Not smoking?” he seemed bewildered; his eyes had sunken even deeper into his head.
Ellery sighed. “I went over that room with a fine comb, Bill. I found a large number of burnt match-stubs on the plate. All right; it’s natural to think of smoking at once. But what are the facts?”
“Lesson Number One in how to be a detective,” chuckled the red-haired woman, but she was watching Bill with anxiety.
“Smoking,” frowned Ellery, “means tobacco. Tobacco means ashes and butts. What did I find? Not the minutest trace of ashes or butts, not the most fragmentary shred of tobacco, consumed or otherwise. No burns anywhere, no signs on the plate or table that a cigaret had been ground out, not the faintest indication in the fireplace or on the rug of a burn or ashes or butts — and I went over that rug inch by inch, examining every thread. And finally, no butts or ashes outside the windows on the ground or anywhere in the vicinity, showing that none had been flicked out of the windows from inside the shack.” He shook his head. “No, Bill. Those matches were employed for any purpose but smoking.”
“So that’s out,” said Bill, and fell silent.
“Wait a minute.” Ellery waved another cigaret. “There’s something out, true, but by the same token there’s something in. Something that may help you in your general plan of attack. Before I go into that, however,” he squinted through the smoke, “may I ask what you intend to do about Miss Andrea Gimball?”
A woman, tall and cool in lawn, was strolling along the walk on the arm of a man. The group at the benches grew very still. The woman’s face was dim, but it was evident that she was listening to her escort, whose burly body jerked restlessly from side to side as if he were in a passion about something. Then the pair came within range of an overhead lamp, and they recognized Andrea Gimball and her fiancé. Burke Jones halted abruptly, glowering. So did Andrea; and she looked at Bill as if he had been a ghost. Then the yellow of Bill’s skin began to redden; he closed his hands and stared down at the resulting fists. Andrea turned like a wraith and ran off down the walk in the direction from which she and her escort had come. Jones stood irresolute for a moment, glaring from Bill to the running girl; and then he too broke into a run, his trussed arm swinging swiftly against his coat.
Ella Amity jumped to her feet. “Bill Angell, I could shake you!” she cried. “What in the name of common sense has got into you? You fool! You’ve picked a sweet time to act like a kid with his first crush!”
Bill’s fingers opened. “You don’t understand, Ella. None of you understands. The girl means nothing to me.”
“Tell that to the Marines!”
“I’m interested in her because I’ve discovered that she’s concealing something.”
“Oh,” said Ella in a different voice. “What?”
“I don’t know. But it’s so important to her that she’s frantic at the mere thought of going on the stand. So,” — he opened and shut his hands rapidly — “that’s exactly where she’s going. Fool, am I?” His eyes strained after the stumbling figure far down the walk. “I’ll show her who’s a fool. She’s important to me — to poor Lucy. So important I’m saving her to be my final witness!”