A "Sappho" in a grimy city she was called because her heart was
touched by the strength of youth; a "Salome" because she planted a
kiss on his dying lips, but whether she was victim or vampire, sinner
or sinned against, was solely for the jury to say.
Cries of blackmail, of bribery, of frenzied jealousy, of shameless
love and daring intrigue, rang around the courtroom for the long days
of the trial, but for the jury it was only to look behind the locked
door of the artist's studio and see whether the revolver with which
Guerin was shot down was held by the woman or the young man; whether
there was malice or accident or self-destruction, and what the motive
for either might be.
The shot that sounded his death was the climax to an
attachment--guilty or not, as the case might be--that began when Dora
McDonald was a wonderfully beautiful and younger woman, the wife of a
wealthy gambler, and the lady of a mansion, and Webster Guerin was a
mere lad, just old enough to doff short trousers for manly attire.
Affection, money and attention were lavished on the young man by this
woman. At banquet board and in the theater box they passed their hours
together. Of this there was no dispute. The sole question was whether
the woman gave way to the lure of a boy, or whether the boy was
importuned by the woman; whether in after years that boy blackmailed
that same woman, or whether she loved him to a distraction that
brought the madness of jealousy and the revolver.
And what of the love attachment? the police wondered. But as they
delved a little they unearthed strange and tender things, but nothing
more strange than poems written by the woman and apparently dedicated
to the youth.
The tragedy of a soul was bared when Assistant State's Attorney Day
read to the jury poems of passion found in the reticule taken from
Mrs. McDonald on her arrest.
The State regarded the declarations contained in the verse as
disclosing a dual motive of murder and suicide, and introduced them as
circumstantial evidence. One entitled "Mistakes" was written on the
day of the Guerin love tragedy.
Here is the first one read: