Jimmy Donovan arose and stepped forward, but addressed the bench instead of the witness-stand. “Your Honor, I wish to state that I knew nothing of the meeting this morning, of the witness with my client, either before or after it took place. I only learned of it here and now. If you think it desirable, I will take the stand to be questioned about it under oath.”
Judge Corbett shook his head. “I don’t think so, Mr. Donovan. Not unless developments suggest it.”
“At any time, of course.” Donovan turned. “Mr. Wolfe, why did you seek an interview this morning with Mr. Ashe?”
Wolfe was relaxed but not smug. “Because I had acquired information which cast a reasonable doubt on his guilt, and I wanted to get it before the court and the jury without delay. As a witness for the prosecution, with a warrant out for my arrest, I was in a difficult situation. It occurred to me that if I saw and talked with Mr. Ashe the fact would probably be disclosed in the course of my examination by Mr. Mandelbaum; and if so, he would almost certainly ask me what had been said. Therefore I wanted to tell Mr. Ashe what I had surmised and what I had discovered. If Mr. Mandelbaum allowed me to tell all I had said to Mr. Ashe, that would do it. If he dismissed me before I finished, I thought it likely that on cross-examination the defense attorney would give me an opportunity to go on.” He turned a palm up. “So I sought an interview with Mr. Ashe.”
The judge was frowning. One of the jurors made a noise, and the others looked at him. The audience stirred, and someone tittered. I was thinking Wolfe had one hell of a nerve, but he hadn’t violated any law I had ever heard of, and Donovan had asked him a plain question and got a plain answer. I would have given a ream of foolscap to see Donovan’s face.
If his face showed any reaction to the suggestion given him, his voice didn’t. “Did you say more to Mr. Ashe than you have already testified to?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Please tell the jury what you said to him.”
“I said that I left this room yesterday morning, deliberately risking a penalty for contempt of court, to explore my surmises. I said that, taking my assistant, Mr. Archie Goodwin, with me, I went to the office of Bagby Answers, Incorporated, on Sixty-ninth Street, where Marie Willis was murdered. I said that from a look at the switchboards I concluded that it would be impossible for any one operator-”
Mandelbaum was up. “Objection, Your Honor. Conclusions of the witness are not admissible.”
“He is merely relating,” Donovan submitted, “what he said to Mr. Ashe. The Assistant District Attorney asked him to.”
“The objection is overruled,” Judge Corbett said dryly.
Wolfe resumed. “I said I had concluded that it would be impossible for any one operator to eavesdrop frequently on her lines without the others becoming aware of it, and therefore it must be done collusively if at all. I said that I had spoken at some length with two of the operators, Alice Hart and Bella Velardi, who had been working and living there along with Marie Willis, and had received two encouragements for my surmise: one, that they were visibly disturbed at my declared intention of investigating them fully and ruthlessly, and tolerated my rudeness beyond reason; and two, that it was evident that their personal expenditures greatly exceeded their salaries. I said-may I ask, sir, is it necessary for me to go on repeating that phrase, ‘I said’?”
“I think not,” Donovan told him. “Not if you confine yourself strictly to what you said to Mr. Ashe this morning.”
“I shall do so. The extravagance in personal expenditures was true also of the third operator who had lived and worked there with Marie Willis, Helen Weltz. It was her day off, and Mr. Goodwin and I drove to her place in the country, near Katonah in Westchester County. She was more disturbed even than the other two; she was almost hysterical. With her was a man named Guy Unger, and he too was disturbed. After I had stated my intention to investigate everyone connected with Bagby Answers, Incorporated, he asked to speak with me privately and offered me ten thousand dollars for services which he did not specify. I gathered that he was trying to bribe me to keep my hands off, and I declined the offer.”
“You said all that to Mr. Ashe?”
“Yes, sir. Meanwhile Helen Weltz had spoken privately with Mr. Goodwin, and had told him she wanted to speak with me, but must first get rid of Mr. Unger. She said she would phone my office later. Back in the city, I dared not go to my home, since I was subject to arrest and detention, so Mr. Goodwin and I went to the home of a friend, and Helen Weltz came to us there sometime after midnight. My attack had broken her completely, and she was in terror. She confessed that for years the operation had been used precisely as I had surmised. All of the switchboard operators had been parties to it, including Marie Willis. Their dean, Alice Hart, collected information-”
There was an interruption. Alice Hart, on the aisle, with Bella Velardi next to her, got up and headed for the door, and Bella followed her. Eyes went to them from all directions, including Judge Corbett’s, but nobody said or did anything, and when they were five steps from the door I sang out to the guard, “That’s Alice Hart in front!”
He blocked them off. Judge Corbett called, “Officer, no one is to leave the room!”
The audience stirred and muttered, and some stood up. The judge banged his gavel and demanded order, but he couldn’t very well threaten to have the room cleared. Miss Hart and Miss Velardi gave it up and went back to their seats.
When the room was still the judge spoke to Wolfe. “Go ahead.”
He did so. “Alice Hart collected information from them and gave them cash from time to time, in addition to their salaries. Guy Unger and Clyde Bagby also gave them cash occasionally. The largest single amount ever received by Helen Weltz was fifteen hundred dollars, given her about a year ago by Guy Unger. In three years she received a total of approximately fifteen thousand dollars, not counting her salary. She didn’t know what use was made of the information she passed on to Alice Hart. She wouldn’t admit that she had knowledge that any of it had been used for blackmailing, but she did admit that some of it could have been so used.”
“Do you know,” Judge Corbett asked him, “where Helen Weltz is now?”
“Yes, sir. She is present. I told her that if she came and faced it the District Attorney might show appreciation for her help.”
“Have you anything to add that you told Mr. Ashe this morning?”
“I have, Your Honor. Do you wish me to differentiate clearly between what Helen Weltz told me and my own exposition?”
“No. Anything whatever that you said to Mr. Ashe.”
“I told him that the fact that he had tried to hire me to learn the identity of the Bagby operator who would service his number, and to bribe her to eavesdrop on his line, was one of the points that had caused me to doubt his guilt; that I had questioned whether a man who was reluctant to undertake such a chore for himself would be likely to strangle the life out of a woman and then open a window and yell for the police. Also I asked him about the man who telephoned him to say that if Ashe would meet him at the Bagby office on Sixty-ninth Street he thought they could talk Miss Willis out of it. I asked if it was possible that the voice was Bagby’s, and Ashe said it was quite possible, but if so he had disguised his voice.”