"Well, I cut my foot on the sharp stones down by the lake shore. You
know where I mean. You used to warn me about them. It was a bad gash
and it bled a lot. I hurried to the house to bandage it. You were
asleep, Peter. I guess it was the powder. I held an old dress to the
cut to keep the blood from getting on the rug. Oh, I shook you and
shook you but you wouldn't wake up! I wanted you to go for a doctor. I
was getting faint and I was bleeding all over the furniture. Some even
got on your clothes...."
I still said nothing. Hearing her confession was like living a scene
from life I had missed.
Anita went on breathlessly. Her words tumbled out so rapidly that at
times I could scarcely understand her. But I began to see her for the
first time. I began to realize that there is more to a woman than a
lovely exterior and that even a devil may wear wings.
"At last I gave up and went into the kitchen. I knew that there were
no bandages in the medicine-chest upstairs, so I began to cut strips
from my dress to bind up my foot. Finally, I managed to fix it. That's
how the blood got on the knife! Oh, Peter, I didn't have any idea what
would happen when I left you that night! Really, I didn't. I was so
angry at you for being so stubborn and I missed Leo and.... Oh, can't
you understand?"
She was bordering on the hysterical but I remained unmoved. Indeed, I
was surprised at my own objective attitude. In the past, Anita's tears
had never failed to impress me. Like a dog responding to his master's
whistle, I had come running at the first sob. But not so now.
"Oh, I know I did a terrible thing when I didn't come forward at the
trial. But I was so sure you'd be freed. After the verdict I would have
come forward, Peter ... but I thought that if the case was appealed,
the decision would be reversed! How could you have murdered me? I
wasn't dead. Then, right afterwards, we sailed for Vienna." She paused
to catch her breath. "Then, too, I thought that you might interfere,
try to take me away from Leo!"
I looked toward my wife's lover. He had not moved nor had he put in a
word. "How did the lamps get broken and the table overturned?" I asked.
She acted as though she hadn't heard me ... but I knew she had. "Oh,
please forgive me!" she wept. "It's all over now! If I had even dreamed
that leaving you would have brought all this!"
"How did the lamps get broken and the table overturned?"
"Peter, tell me you forgive me! It was all a mistake, I tell you! O,
God, I know I've done a terrible thing! If only I.... Will you, Peter?"
I looked her squarely in the eyes. They were very dark blue now--almost
coal-black in the pupils like a sick animal's. No matter what the world
may think and no matter what the psychologists theorize, in that moment
I was saner than I had ever been before. No dramatic haze came before
my eyes; no fit of anger lashed me to a fury. So calm was I, that she
never saw me take the pistol from my pocket. I held her gaze and my
eyes did not give me away.
"I forgive you, Anita," I said.
Then I pressed the trigger.
With the sound of the shot which echoed and re-echoed through the
house, the doctor sprang to his feet. His eyes were almost popping from
his head as he watched Anita slip to her knees and then drop limply to
the floor.
"My God!" he moaned.
I can't remember much more than just that. Faintly, I recollect hearing
the sound of feet running toward the room and the crash of the door
being flung open. Also, I was conscious that there were many people
pressing around me until I felt suffocated. But everything else is
vague. Maybe the shell-shock malady came back for a spell.
Later on, I became aware of myself while riding down to police
headquarters in a Squad car, flanked on either side by a burly
plainclothesman. They did not seem to be paying much attention to me
for they were talking among themselves as though I wasn't there.
"Right through the heart. He sure must have been close, too. Her dress
was burned."
"Yeah. I wonder why he croaked her?"
"Oh, we'll get it out of him down at headquarters."
"Don't be so sure. I think he's a nut. If he ain't, he'll play like he
is. Christ, I'm ready to believe he is, right now! Who the hell ever
heard of knockin' anybody off before witnesses in the dame's own house?"
"Good lookin' babe, too."
"Naw. She was old."
"Well, we'll get a chance at this guy after the line-up."
The driver of the car, evidently having seen my face in his rear-view
mirror, called back over his shoulder. "Hey, boys. The guy's all right
now."
With that, the detectives turned to me at once. One on either side,
they started to fire many questions. "Why did you kill her, Johnny?"
"Was that your rod we found on the floor?" "What's your name, anyway?"
"What was the exact time you did it?" "Where do you live?" "Ain't I
seen you some place before?"
"Yes," I answered, "I killed her. Only not then."
"Not then?" they chorused. "What do you mean by 'not then'?"
"I killed her, yes. But that woman has been dead for eighteen years."
They both stared at me for a minute. Then one of the cops described a
circle about his ear with one finger. The other one nodded his head
significantly.
* * * * *
Dig out your law books, all you students, all you judges, all you
members of the bar. Dust off _Corpus Juris_ and Blackstone and Wharton
and the Constitution; try, if you can, to convict me. On the surface,
it looks simple enough. Here I am, an ex-convict with a record of
eighteen years in the penitentiary, and I have just shot down a woman
in cold blood. Yes, it was in cold blood. I wasn't angry at her any
more than I was angry at that German boy I killed back in 1918.
Come on all you prosecutors! My painfully young, court-appointed
counsel challenges the world! His briefcase is empty but for three
little slips of paper which, he claims, are enough to break any case
against me. Maybe he is right. Who knows? Well, whatever happens, it no
longer matters to me. Remember that only yesterday I intended to commit
suicide? If the case is lost you will only be doing the job for me.
The District Attorney laughed at me when he visited me in jail the
other morning. But I think he was rather worried. He secured the
indictment easily enough ... although it might not have been so easy
had my lawyer's plea to go before the Grand Jury been granted.
"You'll get the Chair, Thatcher," he threatened. "Better let me have
your confession and I'll see what I can do about getting you off with a
prison sentence. I can recommend leniency, you know."
"Oh, I did it, Mr. District Attorney. Why should I deny it?"
"Then you are not going to plead insanity?"
"I don't know what my lawyer is going to do."
"It'll be easier on you if...."
"See my lawyer."
I was really quite calm throughout all the days of questioning and
interviews. I imagine that all the rigamarole I was--and still
am--being forced through would be a great strain on a person. It was
not much of a strain on me. I had been through it before; and while my
first trial had me trembling and biting my nails down to the quick,
this one lacked the resulting tension. It reminded me of the pinochle
games I used to have with Mullins and Carter and the Sarge when we
were all of us broke and without a sou and had to play for no stakes.
I have a late edition of a paper in front of me with my picture on the
very first page. It isn't a very complimentary study of me for, you
see, it was taken by a persistent staff photographer ... through the
bars. But, if I do not appreciate the picture, the article accompanying
it highly amuses me. The lead line reads: "While the alleged slayer
of pretty Anita Thatcher paces the floor of his cell in the Tombs,
brooding over the blood he is charged to have spilled, preparations are
being made for the burial of his victim tomorrow afternoon...."
Brooding? What an imagination! I am not at all sorry that I killed
Anita. Should I be? Except that I was born a fool, I have her to blame
for what I have become.
In the courtroom this morning, the prosecution trotted out a score of
witnesses in short order. By their testimony they placed me in the room
where the crime was committed and at the time specified. This time, of
course, the _corpus delicti_ was established and the jury learned that
I was seen committing the crime by one witness and found with the gun
in my hand by others.
The District Attorney opened the case with a short speech that went
something like this: "I have never seen a more open and shut case of
murder in the first degree. We have everything--weapon, eye-witnesses
and motive. It will be proved in this courtroom that the Defendant
shot and killed his ex-wife because he was jealous of her marriage to
one of the principals in the case. We will show you that the crime was
premeditated, that the Defendant came to the apartment of the deceased
woman with a gun in his pocket for the express purpose of carrying out
his infamous plan of murder. We will prove to you, by means of expert
testimony, that the bullet which ended the life of the deceased came
from the gun belonging to the Defendant. After you have heard all the
evidence in the case, there will remain to you only one alternative ...
to return a verdict of Guilty."
When the District Attorney had finished, my lawyer got to his feet
and said: "The Defense has nothing it would like to say at this time."
His immature voice rising in the court caused a titter of mirth to
circulate. Even His Honor concealed a smile as he rapped for order.
Then came the parade of witnesses, one by one. I recognized a chauffeur
who had been parked before the doctor's door; the doorman from the
building across the street; and a salesman who had happened to be
passing as I entered the house. I heard Lily Pierce, the Carpenter's
maid, testify....
"Then he followed Mrs. Carpenter toward the study. I ran after him and
said that he had no right to go in there. He didn't listen to me. He
pushed me away and slammed the door in my face."
"Did you go in after him?"
"Yes, sir, I did. But when I got inside, the doctor told me that it was
all right and not to disturb him."
"I see. Tell the court, Miss Pierce. Did the doctor act as usual? Or
did he appear nervous, excited, frightened?"
"Well, he didn't seem quite himself."
After many more questions, the State turned the witness over to my
attorney for cross-examination. "No questions!" sang out the youth.
As Leo Carpenter, pale and haggard, took the stand, my lawyer leaned
over and whispered to me: "You've noticed that I haven't cross-examined
any of the witnesses. But there's one fellow I may have to. I've got to
establish the identity of the deceased, you know."
"Doctor Carpenter," the District Attorney was saying. "You saw the
crime being committed?"
"Yes. I was there in the room," he replied. As he said this, our
eyes met across the courtroom. I am sure that there was sympathy and
understanding in his and the reluctant manner in which he testified on
the stand seems to bear me out in this theory. Perhaps he felt that I
had only taken just redress for my injuries by killing Anita.
When the State had finished with the witness, my own counsel approached
him. The prosecution rested.
"Doctor Carpenter, what relation were you to the deceased woman?"
He hesitated for a brief moment. "No relation whatever," he admitted.
"Anita was Mrs. Peter Thatcher."
I heard a murmur of surprise in the court and a few newspaper reporters
tried to leave in search of telephones. Over the noise, I heard the
next question.
"You were not the husband of the deceased?"
"No, I was not."
"In all the eighteen years you had been living together as man and wife
you never married her?"
"No. How could I? She was Mrs. Peter Thatcher."
"She was the same woman who was known to you as Anita Thatcher back in
the year 1919?"
"She is ... she was."
"Very well. That is all. Will the State allow the identification of the
deceased or shall I call more witnesses as part of the Defense?"
"The State allows the identification."
There was a two-hour adjournment for lunch, following which the Defense
resumed the floor. "Your Honor," called my boy gladiator, "I have here
three papers that I wish to offer in evidence. The first of these is
an indictment dated in the year 1919 which states that the Defendant,
Peter Thatcher, may be remanded to a court for trial on a charge of
murder in the first degree. The victim's name: Anita Thatcher! The
second of the papers is a certificate of conviction from the Tompkins
County Court, Judge Foley presiding. It states that in the same year
Peter Thatcher was convicted on a charge of first degree manslaughter
for the killing of the same woman. The third paper is an affidavit from
the Warden of the State Penitentiary at Ossining to the effect that
Peter Thatcher, sentenced by the forementioned court, did serve the
time specified and was formally released after having been imprisoned
for eighteen years.
"Your Honor, under Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution of this
State which says, in part: 'No person shall be subject to be twice put
in jeopardy for the same offence,' I demand that the Court instruct
the jury to return a verdict of Not Guilty for the Defendant. According
to the law, the deceased was killed by the Defendant once already; and
he was convicted and sentenced and paid the penalty for the crime by a
prison term which lasted from 1919 up until the present year.
"The Defendant committed a legal murder. Or, have it this way, if you
like. The Defendant, instead of committing the crime and paying the
penalty, paid the penalty and then committed the crime. He cannot be
tried on those charges again. In conclusion, I do not ask for clemency
for the Defendant. I ask Justice!"
As I write this final portion of my story, which I trust has explained
those features which the press have distorted, I cannot refrain from
smiling a little. His Honor wore such a woe-begone look of bewilderment
when my lawyer passed the certificates to the stenographer with a
dramatic flourish!
"Let me see those papers, please," the judge demanded. The stenographer
quickly handed them up to him. His Honor changed his glasses and, as
he read them through, an unusual stillness pervaded the room. Really, I
believe that of all the people who were crowded into the court, I was
the only person who was not holding his breath.
Finally, after what appeared to be an eternity, the judge looked up. He
cleared his throat several times, fiddled with his glasses, and then
looked over toward the prosecution's table.
"Well, Mr. District Attorney," he said with a puzzled frown wrinkling
his forehead, "what have you to say to that?"
* * * * *
As yet there has been no decision forthcoming. I know that the
prosecution is tearing its collective hair, trying to find some way
to get a conviction. My own lawyer is completely at ease. He left
this morning for a few weeks of fishing in Maine, promising me that
if decision is reserved too long, he'll apply for a writ of _habeas
corpus_.
But I am not impatient to be free. There still remains the problem of
where to go.