“Yes.” It was a cheap plate.
“Where was it situated when you examined the room?”
“On the only table there, the table behind which the dead man lay.”
“It was in a prominent position, then; it couldn’t be missed?”
“No.”
“Was there anything on this plate, Mr. Queen, when you saw it?”
“Yes. A number of paper match-stubs, all showing evidences of having been burnt.”
“You mean that the matches had been struck and extinguished?”
“Yes.”
“You have heard the complete case presented by the State? You’ve sat in this courtroom since the beginning of the trial?”
“I have.”
“Has this plate,” asked Bill grimly, “or the match-stubs which you saw on it at the scene of the crime, been so much as mentioned once by the prosecution?”
“No.”
Pollinger leaped to his feet and for five minutes he and Bill argued before Judge Menander. Finally Bill was permitted to proceed. “Mr. Queen, you are well known as an investigator of crime. Have you anything to offer this jury in explanation of the burnt match-stubs so carefully ignored by the prosecution?”
“Oh, yes.”
There was another argument, more protracted this time. Pollinger fumed. But Ellery was permitted to go on. He went through the reasoning he had outlined to Bill a few nights before concerning the logical impossibility of the matches having been used for smoking purposes.
“You have just shown, Mr. Queen,” said Bill swiftly, “that the matches could not have been employed for smoking purposes. Is there anything you found on your examination of the shack which explains to your own satisfaction why the matches were used?”
“Indeed, yes. There was an object examined not only by me but by Chief De Jong and his detectives that very night. Its condition makes the conclusion, under the circumstances, inevitable.”
Bill brandished something. “Is this the object you refer to?”
“Yes.” It was the charred cork found on the paper-knife.
There was another argument, more violent this time. After a bitter exchange it was settled by the Judge, who permitted the cork to be placed in evidence as a defense exhibit. “Mr. Queen, this cork had been charred by fire when you found it?”
“Unquestionably.”
“It was found on the tip of the knife which killed Gimball?”
“Yes.”
“Have you, as a criminologist, any theory to account for this?”
“There is only one possible interpretation,” said Ellery. “Obviously when the knife was plunged into Gimball’s heart the cork was not on its tip. Therefore the cork must have been placed on the tip by the killer after the murder and then charred by repeated applications of the little paper-matches found on the plate. Why did the criminal do this? Well, what is the effect of a charred cork stuck on the point of a knife? It becomes a crude but effective writing implement. The knife provides leverage, the carbonized cork on its tip provides an edge capable of leaving legible marks. In other words, the killer after her crime wrote something for some purpose of her own.”
“Why in your opinion didn’t the killer employ a simpler device?”
“Because there wasn’t any. There were no ink-filled pens, pencils, or other writing tools anywhere in the shack or on the person of the victim — except for the desk-set, which had a pen and inkwell. But this pen and well were also dry, being new and never having been filled with ink. If the criminal wished to write, then, and had no writing implement on her own person, she would have to manufacture one, which was what she did. The cork, of course, came from the desk-set; she had already had to remove it, in all probability, to commit the crime. So she knew about it in advance of the necessity for writing. As for thinking of the device, the use of burnt cork in the theater, for example, is so universally known that it would not take brilliance to see the possibilities.”
“Have you heard the prosecution so much as mention this burnt cork in presenting its case against the defendant?”
“No.”
“Was a note found, or any sort of written message?”
“No.”
“Your conclusion from this?”
“Patently, it was taken away. If the killer wrote a note, it must have been to someone. It is logical to suppose, therefore, that this person took the note away, that there is a new factor in this case which has not heretofore been suspected. Even if the killer took her own note away, which is absurd, the mere fact introduces an element in no way accounted for by the prosecution.”
For an hour Ellery and Pollinger sparred across the rail of the witness box. It was Pollinger’s point that Ellery was a poor witness for two reasons: that he was a personal friend of the defendant, and that his reputation was based on ‘theory, not practice’. When Ellery was finally excused they were both dripping with perspiration. Nevertheless, it was conceded by the press that the defense had scored an important point. From that time on Bill’s whole manner changed. A bright confidence crept into his eyes which began to infect the jury. Number 2, a sharp-looking business man of Trenton, was observed whispering hotly to his neighbor, who had the blank features of one wholly aloof from the vicissitudes of the world. The blankness disappeared under a cloud of painful thought. Others in the jury box looked more interested than they had appeared for days.
On the last morning, after several sessions with relatively unimportant defense witnesses, Bill came into court with a squareness to his jaw that was remarked by everyone within eyeshot. He was pale, but not so pale as he had been; and there was a truculence in the glance with which he swept the courtroom that made Pollinger look thoughtful.
He wasted no time. “Jessica Borden Gimball to the stand!”
Andrea, behind the prosecutor’s table, gave a little gasp. Mrs. Gimball looked nauseated, then bewildered, and finally furious. There was a hasty conference at the table in which Senator Frueh, who had sat with Pollinger from the beginning of the trial, took the leading rôle. Then the society woman, striving to soften her features, took the stand.
Bill raked her with fierce questions, met Pollinger’s interruptions swiftly, put her through a scathing examination that left her white with rage. When he was through with her, despite all her acid protestations, the impression had accreted that Mrs. Gimball possessed far greater motive for killing Gimball than anyone else in the universe. Pollinger softened the blow by painting her, on cross-examination, as a gentle, misunderstood, and bewildered woman who had not even the consolation of marriage to repay her for the wrong Gimball had done. And he brought out her movements on the night of the murder, her attendance at the Waldorf charity ball — which Bill had questioned — and the improbability of the insinuation that she could have slipped away and driven some eighty miles and back without having been missed.
Bill instantly summoned Grosvenor Finch to the stand. He made the insurance executive admit that Mrs. Gimball had been Gimball’s beneficiary until a few weeks before his death. Although Finch denied it, the possibility was broached that Mrs. Gimball had learned of this beneficiary change through him. To cap the point, Bill recalled to Finch his statement to De Jong on the night of the murder — to the effect that ‘any of us could have slipped away and killed Joe.’
Pollinger retaliated with a stenographic transcript of the exact statement: ‘If you mean that any of us could have stolen off, driven out here, and stabbed Joe Gimball to death, I suppose you would be hypothetically correct.’ Then he asked: “What did you mean by that, Mr. Finch?”
“I meant that theoretically anything under the sun was possible. But I also pointed out the absurdity of it—”