“Are you in a position to state whether Mrs. Gimball was away from the Waldorf ballroom that evening for any length of time?”
“Mrs. Gimball did not leave the hotel all that evening.”
“Did you ever tell Mrs. Gimball that the man she thought her husband had suddenly made someone else his insurance beneficiary?”
“Never. I have testified to that effect innumerable times. There is not a single person in this world who can come forward and assert with truth that I so much as hinted that Gimball had changed his beneficiary.”
“That’s all, Mr. Finch.”
Bill got to his feet and said clearly: “Andrea Gimball.” The girl walked toward the witness box as if she were treading the last long mile. Her eyes were downcast and her hands, clasped tightly before her, were trembling. There was no color whatever in her cheeks. She swore to the formal oath and sat down to become so completely still that she might have been in a trance. The courtroom on the instant sensed hidden drama. Pollinger was gnawing his nails. Behind him the Gimball group showed unmistakable signs of nervousness.
Bill leaned over the box and stared at her until her eyes, as if drawn by a magnet, came up to meet his. Whatever bitter message flashed across the ionized inches of space between them no one ever knew; but both went even paler after a moment and their glances passed, Bill’s to come to rest on the wall behind, hers to go to her hands.
Then Bill said in a strangely flat voice, “Miss Gimball, where were you on the evening of June first?”
Her answer was just audible. “With my mother’s party at the Waldorf in New York.”
“All evening, Miss Gimball?” His tone almost caressed her, but it was the soft and savage caress of a stalking animal. She did not reply, but caught her breath and her lip in one convulsive gasp. “Answer the question, please!” She choked back a sob. “Shall I refresh your memory, Miss Gimball? Or shall I summon witnesses who will refresh it for you?”
“Please...” she whispered. “Bill...”
“You are under oath to tell the truth,” he said stonily. “I am entitled to an answer! Don’t you remember where you spent that part of the evening during which you were not at the Waldorf?”
In the commotion at the prosecutor’s table Pollinger snapped, “Your Honor, counsel is obviously impeaching his own witness!”
Bill smiled at him. “Your Honor, this is a trial for murder. I have summoned a witness who is hostile. I have the right directly to examine a hostile witness whose testimony I could not place on the record by cross-examination during the State’s presentation for the simple reason that the State did not present this witness. It is pertinent testimony, important testimony, and I shall connect it at once if I am given the opportunity by the prosecutor.” He added between his teeth: “Who seems strangely reluctant to have me do so.”
Judge Menander said, “It is perfectly proper for defense counsel to call and examine a hostile witness. Proceed, Mr. Angell.”
Bill growled, “Read the question, please.”
The stenographer obeyed. Andrea replied in a tired, hopeless way, “Yes.”
“Tell the jury where you spent the early part of that evening!”
“At the — the house by the river...”
“You mean the shack in which Gimball was murdered?”
She whispered, “Yes.”
The room exploded. The Gimball party was on its feet, shouting. Only Pollinger was unmoved. During the commotion Bill did not change expression, and Andrea closed her eyes. It took several minutes to quiet the courtroom. Andrea told her story then in a lifeless voice: how, upon receipt of her stepfather’s telegram, she had borrowed her fiancé’s Cadillac roadster and driven to Trenton; how, upon realizing that she was an hour early, she had driven off for a spin and returned at deep dusk to find the shack empty except for Gimball, lying still on the floor.
“You thought he was dead, when as a matter of fact he was still alive?” asked Bill harshly.
“Yes.”
“You didn’t touch his body, Miss Gimball?”
“Oh, no, no!”
As she went on to explain her shock, her scream, and her flight from the house, Ellery quietly scribbled a few notes on a sheet of paper and had it passed to Bill. Andrea stopped in her recital, her eyes widening with a milky fear that turned them from blue to gray.
Bill’s lips tightened queerly. The paper in his fingers jerked a little. “How long were you in the shack — on your second visit?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. Minutes.” She was thoroughly frightened now, her shoulders a little drawn up as if to protect herself.
“Minutes. When you came the first time, at eight o’clock, was there a car in either driveway?”
It was almost as if she were thinking things out in her distress, choosing the unuttered words with a painful care. “There was no car in the main driveway. There was an old sedan — that Packard — in the side drive, parked against the little porch at the side.”
“The Wilson car; that’s right. Now, when you came back — if it was only a matter of minutes, by the way, that you spent in the shack, you must have got there the second time around nine? I saw you leave, remember, at eight after.”
“I... suppose so.”
“When you returned at nine, then, the Packard was still there, of course; but was any other car standing in either driveway?”
Very quickly she said, “No. No. Not at all.”
“And you say,” Bill went on relentlessly, “you saw no one inside the house either the first time or the second time?”
“No one. Not a soul.” She was breathless now. At the same time she raised her eyes, and they were so full of pain, so reproachful, so choked with a mute plea, that Bill colored a little.
“Didn’t you see automobile tracks in the main driveway the second time?”
“I–I don’t remember.”
“You have testified that, having come early, you drove off on Lamberton Road toward Camden for about an hour. Do you recall having passed a Ford coupé driven by a veiled woman on either the outward or the return trip?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You don’t remember. Do you remember what time you got back to New York that night?”
“About eleven-thirty. I–I went home, changed into evening things, drove down to the Wardorf where I joined my mother’s party.”
“Didn’t anyone remark on your long absence?”
“I — No. No.”
“Your fiancé was there without you, your mother was there, Mr. Finch, other friends, and no one remarked on your absence, Miss Gimball? You expect us to believe that?”
“I–I was upset. I don’t recall... that anyone said anything.”
Bill’s lips curled; his face was toward the jury. “By the way, Miss Gimball, what did you do with that note the murderess left for you?”
Pollinger automatically sprang to his feet; then he seemed to think better of it, for he sat down without having said anything. “Note?” faltered Andrea. “What note?”
“The note written with the burnt cork. You heard Mr. Queen’s testimony. What did you do with that note?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her voice rose a little. “I tell you there was no — I mean I know nothing about a note!”
“There were three people on the scene of that crime, Miss Gimball,” said Bill tensely. “The victim, the murderess, and you. That’s giving you the benefit of every doubt. The murderess wrote the note after the crime, so she didn’t write it to her victim. She certainly didn’t write it to herself! Where is that note?”
“I don’t know anything about a note,” she cried hysterically.
“I think,” drawled Pollinger, rising, “that this has gone far enough, Your Honor. This witness is not on trial. She has given sufficient answer to what is certainly an objectionable question.”