STEVENS: What reason did he offer for that refusal?
KAREN: The reason that Bjorn was keeping a mistress. It was Miss Whitfield's ultimatum: I had to be dismissed.
STEVENS: And did Mr. Whitfield grant the loan after you were dismissed?
KAREN: No. He refused it again. He attached what he called "a slight condition" to it.
STEVENS: What was that condition?
KAREN: He wanted the controlling interest in Bjorn's enterprises.
STEVENS: Did Faulkner agree to that?
KAREN: Bjorn said that he'd rather gather all his stock certificates into one pile -- and strike a match.
STEVENS: And did Mr. Whitfield grant the loan?
KAREN: No, he didn't grant it. Bjorn took it.
STEVENS: How did he do that?
KAREN: By forging Mr. Whitfield's signature on twenty-five million dollars' worth of securities.
STEVENS: How do you know that?
KAREN: [Calmly] I helped him to do it.
[Reaction in the courtroom. STEVENS is taken aback; FLINT chuckles]
STEVENS: Did this help Mr. Faulkner?
KAREN: Only temporarily. Certain dividend payments were coming due. We couldn't meet them. Bjorn had stretched his credit to the utmost -- and there was no more to be had.
STEVENS: How did Mr. Faulkner take this situation?
KAREN: He knew it was the end.
STEVENS: What were his plans?
KAREN: You don't find men like Bjorn Faulkner cringing before a bankruptcy commission. And you don't find them locked in jail.
STEVENS: And the alternative?
KAREN: He was not afraid of the world. He had defied its every law. He was going to leave it when and how he pleased. He was --
[The spectators' door at left flies open. A tall, slender, light-eyed young man in traveling clothes rushes in]
REGAN: I told you to wait for me!
[KAREN leaps to her feet with a startled cry. FLINT, WHITFIELD, and several OTHERS jump up. Startled voices exclaim]
VOICES: Regan! "Guts" Regan!
KAREN: [Desperately] Larry! Keep quiet! Please! Oh, please, keep quiet! You promised to stay away!
[JUDGE HEATH raps his gavel -- to no avail]
REGAN: Karen, you don't understand, you don't --
KAREN: [Whirling toward JUDGE HEATH] Your Honor! I demand that this man not be allowed to testify!
FLINT: Why not, Miss Andre?
STEVENS: [Rushing to KAREN] Wait! Don't say a word!
KAREN: [Ignoring him, shouting desperately over the noise] Your Honor . . . !
REGAN: Karen!
[To STEVENS]
Stop her! For God's sake, stop her!
JUDGE HEATH: Silence!
KAREN: Your Honor! This man loves me! Hell do anything to save me! He'll lie! Don't believe a word he says!
[She breaks off abruptly, looks at REGAN defiantly]
REGAN: [Slowly] Karen, your sacrifice is useless: Bjorn Faulkner is dead.
KAREN: [It is a wild, incredulous cry] He's . . . dead?
REGAN: Yes.
KAREN: Bjorn . . . dead?
FLINT: Didn't you know it, Miss Andre?
[KAREN does not answer. She sways and falls, unconscious, on the steps of the witness stand. Pandemonium in the courtroom]
CURTAIN
Act Three
Scene: Same scene as at the opening of Acts I and II. Court session ready to open.NANCY LEE, WHITFIELD, and JUNGQUIST occupy the spectators' seats. KAREN sits at the defense table, her head bowed, her arms hanging limply. Her clothes are black. She is calm -- a dead, indifferent calm. When she moves and speaks, her manner is still composed; but it is a broken person that faces us now. The BAILIFF raps.
BAILIFF: Court attention!
[JUDGE HEATH enters. EVERYONE rises]
Superior Court Number Eleven of the State of New York. The Honorable Judge William Heath presiding.
[JUDGE HEATH sits down. BAILIFF raps and EVERYONE resumes his seat]
JUDGE HEATH: The people of the State of New York versus Karen Andre.
STEVENS: Ready, your Honor.
FLINT: If your Honor please, I want to report that I have issued a warrant for Regan's arrest, as he is obviously an accomplice in this murder. But he has disappeared. He was last seen with the defense counsel and I would like to --
REGAN: [Entering] Keep your shirt on!
[He walks toward FLINT calmly]
Who's disappeared? What do you suppose I appeared for, just to give you guys a thrill? You don't have to issue any warrants. I'll stay here. If she's guilty, I'm guilty. [He sits down at the defense table]
JUDGE HEATH: The defense may proceed.
STEVENS: Karen Andre.
[KAREN walks to the witness stand. Her grace and poise are gone; she moves with effort]
Miss Andre, when you took the stand yesterday, did you know the whole truth about this case?
KAREN: [Faintly] No.
STEVENS: Do you wish to retract any of your testimony?
KAREN: No.
STEVENS: When you first took the stand, did you intend to shield anyone?
KAREN: Yes.
STEVENS: Whom?
KAREN: Bjorn Faulkner.
STEVENS: Do you still find it necessary to shield him?
KAREN: [Speaking with great effort] No . . . it's not necessary . . . any more.
STEVENS: Do you still claim that Bjorn Faulkner committed suicide?
KAREN: No.
[Forcefully]
Bjorn Faulkner did not commit suicide. He was murdered. I did not kill him. Please, believe me. Not for my sake -- I don't care what you do to me now -- but because you cannot let his murder remain unpunished! I'll tell you the whole truth. I've lied at the inquest. I've lied to my own attorney. I was going to lie here -- but everything I told you so far has been true. I'll tell you the rest.
STEVENS: You had started telling us about Mr. Faulkner's way out of his difficulties, Miss Andre.
KAREN: I told you that he was going to leave the world. But he was not to kill himself. I did throw a man's body off the penthouse. But that body was dead before I threw it. It was not Bjorn Faulkner.
STEVENS: Please explain this to us, Miss Andre.
KAREN: Bjorn wanted to be officially dead. No searches or investigations were to bother him. He was to disappear. That suicide was staged. He had had the plan in mind for a long time. He had kept ten million dollars of the Whitfield forgery for this. We needed someone to help us. Someone who could not be connected with Bjorn in any way. There was only one such person: Regan.
STEVENS: What made you believe that Mr. Regan would be willing to help in so dangerous an undertaking?
KAREN: He loved me.
STEVENS: And he agreed to help you in spite of that?
KAREN: He agreed because of that.
STEVENS: What was the plan, Miss Andre?
KAREN: Regan was to get a corpse. But he wasn't to kill anyone for the purpose. We waited. On the night of January sixteenth, "Lefty" O'Toole, a gunman, was killed by rival gangsters. His murderers have since been arrested and have confessed, so you can be sure that Regan had nothing to do with the murder. But you may remember reading in the papers that O'Toole's body disappeared mysteriously from his mother's house. That was Regan's work. O'Toole's height, measurements and hair were the same as Bjorn's. He was the man I threw off the penthouse.
STEVENS: Was that the extent of Mr. Regan's help?
KAREN: No. He was to get an airplane and take Bjorn to South America. Bjorn had never learned to operate a plane. Regan used to be a -- transport pilot . . . That day, January sixteenth, Bjorn transferred the ten million dollars to three banks in Buenos Aires, in the name of Ragnar Hedin. A month later, I was to meet him at the Hotel Continental in Buenos Aires. Until then -- the three of us were not to communicate with each other. No matter what happened, we were not to reveal the secret.