* * * * *
My trial was held in the Tompkins County Court house in Ithaca. The
State was represented by an obnoxious little Assistant District
Attorney who, nevertheless, I am forced to admit, handled his side of
the case magnificently. Point by point he scored tellingly until he had
almost convinced even me that I had done away with Anita.
For the terrible part of it all was that I couldn't be quite sure
whether I had or not. As Assistant District Attorney Blackman pointed
out, I could very easily have committed the crime during one of my
unfortunate lapses of memory. True, this souvenir of the war had not
recurred since I was discharged from the hospital months before, but
there was no evidence to prove that it _couldn't_ recur.
So when old Doc Turnbull, who visited me in my cell before the trial,
remarked kindly that he was sure I hadn't done it, I replied in
despair: "But that's just it! How can you say I didn't kill her when I
don't even know myself?"
Unless my periodic amnesia was coupled with an unreasonable dementia,
there was no motive for my killing Anita--as far as I was concerned.
Gilberte's letter which I never read and which the State offered
in evidence, had had nothing to do with it. I certainly did not
murder Anita for Gilberte or for any other woman. Nevertheless, the
translation of the letter in court did sound bad. Blackman read it
aloud, punctuating each sentence with a knowing glance toward the jury
and stressing certain words and phrases which, I am sure, Gilberte had
never meant to be stressed.
Translated, it ran something like the following: