Bill replied at length, arguing passionately. But Judge Menander shook his head. “You have been answered, Mr. Angell. I think you had better proceed with your examination.”
“Exception!”
“You may have it. Proceed, please.”
Bill turned fiercely to the witness box. “Now, Miss Gimball, may I ask you to explain to this jury if you have ever told your story of that evening’s adventures to any official investigator of this crime — Chief De Jong, Prosecutor Pollinger, or any of their men?”
Again Pollinger half-rose, but he sank back. Andrea glanced at him, moistening her lips.
“We want your own story, Miss Gimball,” said Bill ironically. “You will oblige me by not looking for assistance from the prosecutor.”
She fumbled with her gloves. “I— Yes, I did.”
“Oh, you did. Did you tell them this story voluntarily? Did you come forward with it of your own free will?”
“No, I—”
“Oh, then, Chief De Jong or Mr. Pollinger came to you?”
“Mr. Pollinger.”
“In other words, had Mr. Pollinger not approached you, you would not have gone to the authorities with your story? Just a moment, Mr. Pollinger. You waited until the authorities came to you! When was this, Miss Gimball?”
She shielded her eyes from the stares of the courtroom. “I don’t remember exactly. Perhaps a week after it...”
“After the crime? Don’t be afraid to say it, Miss Gimball. The crime. You aren’t frightened by that word, are you?”
“I — No. No. Of course not.”
“A week after the crime, the prosecutor came to you and questioned you. During that week you said nothing to the authorities about having visited the scene of the crime on the night of the murder. Is that correct?”
“It — it wasn’t important. I couldn’t contribute anything. I disliked getting involved—”
“You disliked getting involved in an ugly mess? Is that it? Now, Miss Gimball, while you were on the scene that night did you touch the knife?”
“No!” She was answering with more spirit now; her eyes flashed and were blue again. They glared at each other across the rail.
“Where was the knife?”
“On the table.”
“You didn’t so much as lay a finger on it?”
“No.”
“Were you wearing gloves that night?”
“Yes. But I had my left glove off.”
“Your right glove was on your hand?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t it true that in fleeing from the shack you banged your hand against the door and dislodged the diamond of your engagement ring?”
“Yes.”
“You lost it? You didn’t know you had dropped it?”
“I — No.”
“Isn’t it true that I found it,and told you about it the very night of the crime, and that you pleaded with me desperately not to say anything about it to anyone?”
She was furious now. “Yes!” Her cheeks were fiery.
“Isn’t it true,” asked Bill in a hoarse, impassioned voice, “that you even kissed me in an effort to keep me from disclosing the fact to the police?”
She was so stunned she half-rose from the chair. “Why, you — you promised! You — you—” She bit her lip to keep back the tears.
Bill tossed his head, doggedly. “Did you see the defendant on the night of the crime?”
The fire in her cheeks was quenched. “No,” she whispered.
“You didn’t see her at any time — in the shack, near the shack, on the road between the shack and Camden?”
“No.”
“But you admit that you visited the scene of the crime that night and said nothing to anyone about it until you were accused pointblank in private by the prosecutor?” Pollinger was on his feet now, shouting. There was a long argument.
“Miss Gimball,” resumed Bill hoarsely, “didn’t you know that your stepfather was leading a double life?”
“No.”
“Didn’t you know that he had shortly before June first removed your mother as beneficiary of his million-dollar policy?”
“No!”
“You hated your stepfather, didn’t you?”
Another wrangle. Andrea was white now, white with rage and shame. At the prosecutor’s table the Gimball group were flushed with indignation. “All right,” said Bill curtly, “that’s enough for me. Inquire.”
Pollinger strode to the rail of the box. “Miss Gimball, when I came to you a week after the crime what did I say to you?”
“You said you had traced the roadster and found it belonged to my fiancé. You asked me if I hadn’t visited the — the scene on the night of the crime and, if so, why I hadn’t come forward and told you so.”
“Did it ever strike you that I was trying to shield you, or suppress your story?”
“No. You were very severe with me.”
“Did you tell me the story you have just told this jury?”
“Yes.”
“What did I say to that?”
“You said you would check up on it.”
“Did I ask you any questions?”
“A great many.”
“Pertinent questions? About the evidence? About what you saw and did not see, that sort of thing?”
“Yes.”
“And didn’t I then tell you that your story in no way conflicted with what evidence the State had already amassed against the defendant, and that therefore I would spare you the annoyance and pain of putting you on the stand during the trial?”
“Yes.”
Pollinger stepped back, smiling paternally. Bill stamped forward. “Miss Gimball, it’s true, is it not, that the State did not call you as a witness in this trial?”
“Yes.” She was weary now, sapped and limp.
“Although you had a story to tell that might conceivably put a reasonable doubt of the defendant’s guilt into the minds of the jury?”
The defense rested.
As they waited for the verdict and the hours massed into a day, and then into two days, with still no word from the jury, it was remarked that opinion had shifted since the close of the State’s case. The prolonged discussions in the jury room were a favorable sign for the defendant; at the very least, they seemed to indicate a deadlock. Bill was heartened; as the hours passed he even began to smile faintly.
The summations after the short session of rebuttal testimony had been swift. Bill, summing up first, had made out a strong indictment against Pollinger personally. He contended that not only had the defense reasonably explained away all the accusations of the State, but that Pollinger had been criminally remiss in his sworn duty. Pollinger, he thundered, had suppressed important evidence: the story of Andrea Gimball’s visit to the scene of the crime. It was the function of the public prosecutor, he pointed out, not to persecute, not to hold back any facts, but to sift for the truth. And Pollinger had deliberately ignored two other very important facts which would have gone unmentioned if not for the alertness of the defense’s witnesses: the burnt match-stubs and the charred cork. They had not been explained by the State and certainly had not been connected to the defendant. Moreover, the State had failed to prove that the veil was the defendant’s, had failed to produce the source from which the veil had come.
Finally, Bill outlined the defense theory. Lucy Wilson, he said, had obviously been framed for the murder of her distinguished husband. The powers of wealth, of social position, he cried, had picked a poor defenseless victim: the woman who had received nothing from Gimball but his love. Someone was offering her up as a victim. In support of this theory he pointed to the ‘crushing’ testimony of the Federal expert on metals, who had testified that the radiator-cap would not have broken off by itself. Someone, then, had knocked it off. But if someone had knocked it off, it must have been done deliberately; and it could only have been so done with intent to implicate the owner of the car from which it came, Lucy Wilson.