Leave Her to Heaven

by Ben Ames Williams

  ‘All right, go on with what she said that afternoon about the possibility of her death.’

  ‘She told me how happy she and Mr. Harland had been at Back of the Moon the summer before, and she said she had made him promise that when she died, he would have her cremated and scatter her ashes on the lake there; and she told me to be sure to remind him. She said if I did not, she would haunt us.’

  ‘Was that her only reference to the possibility of her death?’

  ‘Yes, except that she said — I’m not sure it was that day, but she had often said the same thing — that she did not want to live to be old, that she expected to die young.’

  ‘Now come to the day she died.’ Harland felt his muscles tighten, but Mr. Pettingill’s tone remained the same, and there was in this fact and in Ruth’s quiet responses a deep reassurance. Under the lawyer’s leading she described the picnic in meticulous detail; and she told of the hours of Ellen’s agony, and of the sorry journey to Boston, and of Harland’s trip to Bangor with Ellen’s ashes, and of his subsequent departure for far places, and of her long months alone, and of Harland’s return, and of their many hours together during the winter that followed, and so of their marriage. Harland, listening, relived those happy hours, and he was full of pride and joy in her, and to him she seemed to shine with an inner radiance as she serenely faced the intent and avid crowd.

  Mr. Pettingill at last glanced toward the clock on the wall. ‘Well, that’s about all,’ he said. ‘But I’ll ask you a few more questions. Was Ellen normally a healthy person?’

  ‘She had, all her life, occasional attacks of indigestion.’

  ‘How often?’

  ‘I suppose I remember a dozen, beginning when we were both children.’

  ‘Was she on these occasions seriously ill?’

  ‘Yes, she suffered great pain, nausea, distress.’

  ‘Was a doctor usually called?’

  ‘Yes, always.’

  ‘Do you remember an attack after Danny died?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was it different from the others?’

  ‘It seemed to me the same.’

  ‘Did she on that occasion have a doctor?’

  ‘Yes, a doctor and a nurse.’

  ‘Had she before that attack eaten food you prepared?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘I cooked our dinner. Mrs. Freeman was out and we had just then no second maid. I broiled chops and made a salad, and Mrs. Freeman had left an apple pie.’

  ‘Did you sprinkle arsenic on Ellen’s piece of apple pie?’

  The question came so abruptly that despite Mr. Pettingill’s easy tone Harland twitched with shock; but if Ruth too was startled, she did not show it.

  ‘No,’ she said simply. Harland felt the taut attention in the crowded room, heard behind him in the silence the racing pencils of the reporters. Mr. Pettingill asked quietly:

  ‘Did you, in Boston, a few days before her coming to Bar Harbor, prepare a dinner which she ate?’

  ‘Yes, she and Mr. Harland dined with me. I gave them curry.’

  ‘Did you put arsenic in her curry?’

  The repeated question was as searing as it had been when Mr. Pettingill first asked it. To Harland it was like a lash across his cheek; and he thought Ruth felt this too, for her lips paled a little and her voice was lower when she answered.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What happened after that dinner?’

  ‘She had an attack of indigestion.’

  ‘Had she medical attendance on that occasion?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘With regard to the illness that resulted in her death, was that different from her previous attacks?’

  ‘It seemed no worse at first, but it persisted — and she died.’

  ‘Let’s go back to the picnic, repeat ourselves a little. Did she eat anything that day which the rest of you did not eat?’

  ‘She had sugar in her coffee. We did not.’

  Harland hardened himself for what was coming, for the third asking of that monotonous question.

  ‘Where did she get the sugar? I want to go over that once more.’

  Ruth clearly was tiring, but she answered steadily: ‘While I was packing the hamper, she reminded me to take along some sugar for her. I couldn’t find any lump sugar, so I put some granulated sugar in an envelope and put it in the hamper. When she asked for sugar during lunch, I gave her that envelope.’

  ‘The same one in which you had put the sugar?’

  ‘I thought it the same one. It was the same one as far as I know.’

  ‘Where did you get the sugar?’

  ‘Out of the firkin.’

  ‘Where did you get the envelope?’

  ‘From the desk in the library.’

  ‘Was it the only one of its kind there?’

  ‘No, there were several, perhaps two dozen, in a pigeonhole on the desk.’

  ‘I show you an envelope. Is this the same one?’

  Ruth examined it carefully. ‘It looks just the same,’ she said. ‘They were all alike.’

  ‘It has been testified that two years later, this envelope contained sugar to which arsenic had been added. Do you know anything about that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you put arsenic in the sugar you took to the picnic for Ellen’s coffee?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you murder your sister?’

  Ruth’s lips drained white, but she said quietly: ‘No.’

  ‘Did you ever, while Ellen was alive, wish her dead?’

  ‘No.’

  Mr. Pettingill nodded, and he spoke more gently. ‘Were you in love with Mr. Harland before Ellen died?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When did you realize that you were in love with him?’

  ‘It was some time after his return from his trip around the world.’

  ‘Did you find, in retrospect, that you had loved him long before that?’

  She smiled frankly. ‘That is the sort of question lovers ask each other,’ she commented, and she said in even tones, looking toward Harland with her heart in her eyes: ‘I feel now that I have always loved him, and I know I always will.’

  Mr. Pettingill turned away. ‘Your witness, Brother Quinton,’ he said quietly; but he had timed his questions well. Before Quinton could rise, Judge Andrus announced adjournment for the day.

  – II –

  Harland had a moment with Ruth, to touch her hand, to say: ‘I never loved you so much.’ Her fingers, clinging to his, shook and trembled; and he saw that in the reaction from these hours in the box, facing hundreds of curious eyes, she was weak and breathless now.

  Then she was gone, Mrs. Sayward beside her, Deputy Hatch moving ponderously on their heels. Pettingill and Roger Pryde and Harland left the courthouse together, and when they were alone, Pryde shook Harland’s hand. ‘You’re a lucky man,’ he said. ‘She’s wonderful.’

  Harland laughed brokenly. ‘I don’t feel lucky,’ he said. ‘I could kill Quinton — and every spectator, and the damned reporters.’

  ‘Easy,’ Pryde warned him. ‘You’ll have to keep your temper. Quinton will give her a hard time tomorrow, you know.’

  Harland’s fists knotted, but he did not speak. Before they reached the hotel, Leick joined them; and at Harland’s suggestion he stayed to have dinner with them. It was served in Mr. Pettingill’s room; and although they ate almost in silence, they sat afterward in talk a while.

  ‘Well,’ Mr. Pettingill remarked. ‘Mrs. Harland made a splendid witness; and I’m sure she’ll stand up under cross-examination. But after all, her testimony is negative; just a general denial, nothing more. Quinton will point out that if she did poison Ellen she would of course deny it. I hope the jury will believe her. My idea was to let her win them, let them come to know her and like her.’

  ‘They did,’ Pryde agreed.

  ‘Well, we’ve made our denial,’ the big man went on. ‘We can’t questio
n that Ellen died of arsenic poisoning, nor that arsenic was found in the Bar Harbor house in a bottle bearing Ruth’s fingerprints, nor that Mr. Harland and Ruth — even before Ellen’s death — were pretty good friends. So — where do we go from here?’

  He hesitated, and they saw that he had forgotten them. ‘We could put in some testimony about Ellen’s previous attacks of indigestion,’ he remarked. ‘Call her doctors, get their opinions that in each case — the apple pie and the curry — her illness seemed to them indigestion and nothing more. But that’s still negative evidence — and Quinton would make them admit that her symptoms might have resulted from arsenic poisoning.’ He looked thoughtfully at Harland. ‘Since we’re arguing that she killed herself, we’ll have to tell the jury that you and she were at odds.’ His tone was a question, but Harland did not speak, and the lawyer said: ‘By the way, Ruth tells me Ellen had been warned she couldn’t have any more babies?’

  Harland assented. ‘Yes. I didn’t know it till she told Ruth, in my hearing. The doctor never told me so.’

  ‘We’ll check with him, see if her condition — physical condition — was such as to produce melancholia. What’s his name?’

  ‘Doctor Patron.’

  Mr. Pettingill said: ‘Make a note of that, Mr. Pryde.’ Roger did so, and the big man suggested: ‘Better get him on the phone, see what he has to say.’ Roger departed to do so, and Leick, sitting silently by, whittled a fresh fill for his pipe, rolling the tobacco to crumbs between his palms. Mr. Pettingill said thoughtfully: ‘We’re arguing she committed suicide; but we’ll have to at least suggest how she could have done so. We can argue that she saw Ruth prepare that envelope with the sugar in it, and fixed up a duplicate, and took it along in her coat pocket, and switched envelopes during the picnic, when she put the real envelope in her pocket; but it’s easier to argue that she made the switch at Bar Harbor, or maybe in the car.’

  ‘Why?’ Harland asked, not understanding.

  ‘Because if she’d switched the envelopes at the picnic, she’d have had to get rid of the one with the real sugar in it; but she had no chance to do that. She was with you or Ruth all the time. If she just stuck it in her pocket, it would have been found by now, by whoever put her clothes away.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Harland agreed. ‘Ruth must have cleaned her pockets out, and she’d have found it.’

  ‘I’ll ask Ruth about that,’ Mr. Pettingill decided. ‘Or Mrs. Freeman might know. But no, you went direct from Leick’s place to Boston — took her clothes along, I suppose?’

  Harland hesitated, and Leick answered. ‘That’s right. Mrs. Harland wrapped them up in some paper, put them in the car; and I mind she took everything out of the coat pockets, cigarettes and matches and dark glasses and a little purse and a handkerchief.’

  ‘Well, that’s too bad,’ Mr. Pettingill commented. ‘If we could show she got rid of the real envelope with the sugar in it at the picnic, we could nail the thing right down snug.’

  Then Roger Pryde came back, saying quickly:

  ‘Dick, I’ve got Doctor Patron on the phone, but he wants to talk to you. Professional ethics, I suppose. I told them to switch him up here.’

  Harland took the phone and heard the doctor on the line. ‘This is Richard Harland, Doctor,’ he explained. ‘We’re working on the theory that Mrs. Harland committed suicide, and I wanted to ask you — was there anything in her physical condition to produce melancholia?’

  ‘No, no,’ Doctor Patron told him. ‘She was perfectly healthy.’

  ‘I thought possibly — I know of course that you’d told her she could never have a baby.’

  ‘Never have a baby?’ Harland heard the indignant surprise in the other’s tone.

  ‘She told us so, yes,’ he said.

  ‘Nonsense!’ Doctor Patron exclaimed. ‘She could have had a dozen! There was nothing wrong with her at all!’

  Harland hesitated, looking at the others. ‘Hold the line a minute,’ he said, and cupped the transmitter and spoke to Mr. Pettingill. ‘Doctor Patron says she could have had babies all right. I remember now I suspected at the time that she just said that so Ruth wouldn’t wonder why we didn’t have another.’ And he asked: ‘Do you want him to come up here, to testify?’

  Pettingill hesitated. ‘We can tell better tomorrow night,’ he decided; and when Harland left the phone, he added, his hand caressing his heavy chin: ‘Well, that’s interesting. Psychologically at least.’ He looked at Harland. ‘You say Mrs. Huston thought Ellen got rid of her baby on purpose. Doctor Patron might know.’

  Harland said wretchedly: ‘He couldn’t know surely. Let’s not go into that.’

  ‘We’re claiming that she not only killed herself, but deliberately tried to throw the guilt on Ruth,’ Mr. Pettingill reminded him. ‘We’ll need to show the jury she was an extraordinarily selfish, jealous, malicious woman.’ But Harland did not speak; and after a moment Leick said:

  ‘I b’en thinking, Mr. Pettingill. That other envelope, the one with the real sugar in it, she might have thrown it into the fire.’

  ‘Possibly,’ Pettingill agreed, and sat in silent thought, and then suddenly he rose, dismissing them. ‘Well, we’re all tired,’ he said. ‘Mr. Harland, go to bed, get a good rest. I want you to follow Mrs. Harland on the stand.’

  Harland when he was alone found his brow beaded with moisture at thought of the morrow; but whatever he need do for Ruth’s sake he would do. He slept easily, too near exhaustion to stay awake; slept like a man drugged.

  – III –

  Harland did not see Ruth next morning until in court she came to her seat beside him; he had time for no more than a secret pressure of her hand before she took the stand and Quinton rose to begin her cross-examination. Quinton said at once:

  ‘Now, Mrs. Harland, you have pleaded not guilty to this indictment, so I don’t expect you to admit poisoning your sister. But there are a few questions I’d like to ask you. Go back to the time when your Boston house was sold. Your father had a workshop where he sometimes skinned and stuffed birds, on the top floor of that house?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He had there a supply of arsenic?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘After your father died, did you enter that room?’

  ‘Yes. After he died, Ellen put his things in order, and — — ’

  ‘I asked about you, not Ellen.’

  Ruth continued as though he had not spoken: ‘And I went in now and then to dust and clean.’

  ‘An unused room? Weren’t the windows closed?‘

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then why did it need dusting?’

  Ruth smiled. ‘I’m afraid you’re not a housekeeper.’

  ‘At any rate, on one pretext or another, you often went into that room.’

  ‘Yes. Several times.’

  ‘After your mother died, you sold the house?’

  ‘Ellen and I. We owned it jointly.’

  ‘But you yourself cleaned out that room?’

  ‘May I tell you just what happened?’

  Quinton bowed. ‘Nothing would please me more.’

  ‘Very well,’ Ruth assented. ‘We decided to sell the house, Ellen and I. Ellen came one day to discuss what should be done with the furniture. She suggested that the Museum might like some of Father’s things. She stayed in that room alone, saying she wished to “say good-bye to Father,” and I went downstairs. She joined me after perhaps ten minutes.’ Harland saw triumphantly that Quinton’s own question allowed Ruth to remind the jury that Ellen too had access to the arsenic. ‘Next day the Museum sent a man who selected what he wanted.’

  Quinton said in an ironic tone: ‘What we want to hear, Mrs. Harland, is what you did with the arsenic in that room. I trust you will come to the point.’

  ‘Oh, I will,’ she assured him. ‘After the Museum man was done, I cleaned out everything. The arsenic I put in the furnace, burned it.’

  ‘How much was there?’

  ‘Two jars, qu
art jars. One full, the other almost empty.’

  ‘I don’t expect you to admit that you kept any of that arsenic; but if you wished, you could have done so?’

  ‘Of course,’ Ruth assented. ‘I could have kept it all, but I didn’t.’

  ‘Were you alone when you cleaned the room?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Quinton led her to describe the Bar Harbor workshop, inquiring what was done with the arsenic there; and she said she destroyed it the summer after Ellen’s death.

  ‘The arsenic was there in the workshop before her death?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘You had the key to the shop?’

  ‘Yes. It was kept in the back entry, hanging on a nail.’

  ‘Did you at any time take some of the arsenic and put it into a bottle and hide it behind the baseboard in your room?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You knew there was such a hiding place?’

  ‘Yes. Ellen — — ’

  ‘Did any other living person know about that hiding place?’

  ‘Ellen knew about it.’

  ‘But Ellen has been dead almost two years.’

  ‘She and I were — as far as I know — the only ones who knew about that place.’

  ‘How recently have you hidden anything there?’

  ‘I never did. Ellen discovered the loose baseboard when we were children. The carpenters forgot to nail it in place, I suppose . . .’

  ‘Never mind your suppositions. You and Ellen used to hide things there.’

  ‘Ellen did. I came to our room one day when we were children and she had the baseboard pried out and propped open with a book, but she was furious with me for seeing her. I promised never to tell, and she told me never to dare look in there, and I never did.’

  ‘Were you always so obedient to her wishes?’

  ‘We all did what Ellen wanted.’

  ‘But you never put anything in there?’

  ‘No, never.’

  ‘I show you a certain bottle. Do you recognize it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tell us about it.’

  ‘It was given to me.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘For my birthday, I think. In August, the year before Mother and Ellen died.’