Magician's Wife

by James M. Cain

  At last Monday came, and for a long time Clay stared incredulously around the courtroom in Channel City’s austere courthouse. It was crowded, but with the help of a bailiff, one of Nat Pender’s friends, Clay found a seat on a bench near the rail without any trouble. And what he found so hard to believe was that a place so warmly pleasant, its ceiling so aglow from soft indirect lighting, its acoustics so quiet that footfalls made no sound, could hold life or death in the balance, for anyone at all, especially someone as harmless as Buster. Even the two flags, the red, white, and blue of the United States to the right of the bench, the gold and black of Maryland to its left, were of such beautiful silk that they hardly implied this power, or anything, except poetic patriotism. Suddenly, as he pondered this paradox, Buster came in by a side door, escorted by a policewoman and met by Mr. Pender, who appeared from somewhere and brought her to a table inside the rail. She still had on her black dress, with a small black shell hat, and a beige coat on her arm. She was thinner than Clay remembered her, paler, and infinitely more dignified. She saw him, smiled, and gave him a little wave. He nodded and tried to smile back. Then he felt eyes upon him and turned to find Sally there, at the other end of the bench he was sitting on. At that moment a man appeared at her side, shaking hands, whom Clay identified, from his pictures in the paper, as John Kuhn, the prosecutor. He appeared to be in his forties, a medium-sized man, dark, with some distinction about him, a point Clay noted with relief. He had dreaded a bully, knowing only too well his own reaction to such men, which was to turn bully himself. Mr. Kuhn had scarcely gone through the rail and taken his place at a table across from Mr. Pender’s than a bailiff appeared by the Maryland flag, banged three times with a gavel, and announced: “This honorable court is now in session,” while simultaneously everybody stood up and a judge appeared from below, taking his seat on the bench. His name, Clay had learned, was Warfield, he being of the same family as one of the state’s governors. He was perhaps in his sixties, with pink face, silver hair, and mild, humane expression. In his robes, he had his share of the good looks his family was noted for.

  “State of Maryland versus Edith Conlon.”

  Told to rise, Buster did so, and was informed of the charge against her: First-degree murder, in that she “did willfully and with malice aforethought, compass, contrive, and cause the death of one Alexander Gorsuch.”

  Asked “How do you plead?” she let go with a hot, defiant blast, snarling: “Not guilty, that’s how I plead!”

  Her tone got a gasp of surprise from the crowd, of anger from the bailiff, who used his gavel again. “You stop banging that thing at me!” snapped Buster, advancing on him. “You asked how I plead and I told you! ‘Not guilty!’ as I’m entitled to say and expect to keep on saying!”

  “The defendant will take her seat.”

  Judge Warfield was quite stern, and Mr. Pender, after leading Buster to her chair, said ingratiatingly: “May it please the court?” and then asked that allowance be made “for the state of my client’s emotions: a six-week stay in jail plus the accusation she faces don’t exactly produce a tranquil spirit.”

  “This court,” said Judge Warfield, “is not insensible to such considerations, but I intend to have decorum. Miss Conlon, do you hear? You will show respect for this court.”

  “I have respect for this court,” said Buster, rising again. “But I’d like some respect too, and he can stop banging at me.

  “The court has respect for you.”

  The ghost of a smile played on Judge Warfield’s handsome face, and as Buster sat down again he proceeded to the selection of a jury. Clay listened as the talesmen were examined, trying to make himself follow, but being distracted from within by the surge of pride that he felt in this cheap, baffling girl and the courage she had shown, standing up for her rights, or what she felt were her rights. The thing went on, and by lunchtime only five jurors were chosen, four men and a woman. “You’ll notice,” said Mr. Pender, over a tray in the courthouse cafeteria, “I’m leaning heavy on men—more broad-minded, Clay. Her danger is that she’ll be convicted not of committing murder but of being—what was that word you used?—a flip-floosie. I got to remember that, it covers a lot of ground. Well, men aren’t bothered by it so much. But men-only are bad too. Couple of girls in there, of a nice, sensible kind, will head off the smoking-car jokes while the ballots are being taken. So, as of now, we’re doing all right.”

  The thing went on all afternoon, and it was after five when the twelve were accepted, ten men and two women, and Judge Warfield recessed until next morning. Home with Grace, Clay told everything: his eye clash with Sally, Buster’s outbreak, the judge’s amusement, Mr. Pender’s approach to the jury, and the kind of panel they had. “O.K., I thought—they look like decent people that can take a reasonable view.” She listened, preoccupied with dinner: a fragrant martini, which she made by a formula of her own, terrapin soup, duck, baked potato, peas, salad, and ice cream. With the duck she gave him Chambertin, in all ways coddling his inner man and making him feel loved. After washing up, she put him to bed early, then climbed in with him and cuddled his head on her breast. He inhaled her with deep content, saying: “Well, make a long story short: the main thing today, from my end, was that guy John Kuhn. I have no doubt he’s tough—all prosecutors are and no use squawking on that. But toughness I don’t mind—after ten years selling meat, what does it mean to me? Not a thing—I’m used to it. It’s all in a day’s work. But at least he’s a gentleman! What I was dreading, Grace, was one of these louts. But this guy, to every one of those people, had manners. Even the roughnecks, the ones in the blue flannel shirts, he called ‘Mr.,’ and always remembered their names. Same with the women: it was ‘Miss’ or ‘Mrs.,’ and invariably with respect. If he acts that way with me, it’s all that I ask. Maybe you think I’m cockeyed but—”

  “I don’t at all. I know how you feel. I glory in you for it—I wouldn’t have you different. Now, if you’re all talked out, hold onto your hat. Who do you think called?”

  “I bite. Who?”

  “Sally. Around lunchtime.”

  “Yeah? And what did she want?”

  “As she said, to ask how I was and how I’d enjoyed my trip. As I think, to find out what I’ve been told.”

  “And what did you say, Grace?”

  “Nothing. That Mankato was simply swell.”

  “Just—chitter-chatter?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Did she buy it, do you think?”

  “With her you never know. But—she could have.”

  She subsided, and he held her close for a time, but then she started again. “Clay,” she whispered, “I had to ask too. I couldn’t do less, of course.”

  “You mean, how she’s been getting along.”

  “Yes—and how someone else has.”

  “Oh? The little boy?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Well? And how has he been getting along?”

  “The way she tells it is famously.” Clay started as she reproduced Sally’s voice, but she went on, “He just loves everything: the suite she has on the twentieth floor of the Chinquapin-Plaza; the new nurse she got for him, an English girl named Lizette; his kindergarten school; his pony out at the stables; his teddy bear; his sleep suit—and of course his little friends, Bunny’s kids. Clay, all the time she was talking something went through my mind. After we’ve moved, when we’re equipped to take care of a child...”

  “You’d like to ask him out? Is that it?”

  “I’d give anything if we could!”

  “We’ll—take it under advisement.”

  “Clay, he’s such a dear, sweet little boy! And until you came along he was my life. He was—”

  “I thought we were going to have some of our own.”

  “You bet we are! Oh, I haven’t forgotten them!”

  “O.K.—then as soon as this is over...”

  “We’ll start working on them!”

  She kissed h
im and then whispered for twenty minutes, with all an artist’s exactitude, about pregnant women, “their big bellies, the haunted look in their eyes, their craving for lollipops, for canned peaches, for everything under the sun. God’s caricatures, aren’t they? Clay, a woman big with child is the most beautiful thing in the world—and that’s what I want to be: big with child again, your child.”

  “That’ll be swell, won’t it, having a child in the house that you can’t look in the eye because you killed his father. That’s one grand scheme that you can kid her out of.”

  22

  MR. KUHN WAS BRIEF in his opening statement, a bit regretful, and devastatingly to the point. The state, he said, would prove that the defendant “killed the deceased while riding beside him, by the simple trick of jerking the wheel of his car, jumping clear when it swerved, and leaving him to plunge, by a momentum he couldn’t arrest, over a bank that collapsed under him, into eight feet of water.” Her motives, he went on, were crude, “but wholly comprehensible, if also wholly wicked.” First, she wanted revenge “on a man who had been her lover, but who on the death of his father had reconsidered his mode of life, and decided to patch up his marriage if he could. This man had a wife, as the defendant knew he had from her first meeting with him, as the wife introduced her to him.” Second she wanted cash, “twenty-five thousand dollars in insurance she stood to collect, provided his death took place before the policy lapsed—and it still had two months to run.” Then piece by piece he fitted his case together, stressing that “this was no caprice, no sudden fit of temper,” and citing an episode in the nightclub, “where the defendant nagged and urged and goaded the deceased to climb a ladder, to observe, as she told him, if overhead rails were level, but actually in the hope he would fall—and break his neck.” In a shocked, low voice, Mr. Kuhn added: “He did fall—he did not break his neck.” And then, he went on, “she took her last desperate step—intruded herself into his car and flung him down to his death.” He admitted that nobody saw this, that “our case is circumstantial.” Nevertheless, he said, “there was a witness, silent, but eloquent, in the shape of a seat belt, which was fastened, but jammed back of the seat.” But his best witness, he concluded, would be the defendant herself, who had scarcely reached the hospital “before she began making statements, copious statements, to the police—every one of which turned out false.”

  He elected to start with “background,” and his first witness was Sally. A thready tremor of fear wriggled through Clay’s heart as the bailiff called: “Mrs. Sally Gorsuch,” and wriggled again as she whirled in front of him, where he sat in the same seat he had had the day before. She was in a black wool suit and soft black felt hat, and made a pale, ladylike picture as she climbed to the witness box, held up her hand to swear, and gave her name in a quiet voice, so quiet that Judge Warfield admonished her, “Louder, Mrs. Gorsuch—speak so the jury can hear.” Under Mr. Kuhn’s skillful questioning, she told the story of her marriage, how as a high-school student she had met a young magician, gone to work in his act, and married him. “Then, very soon,” she went on, “I was expecting my child and couldn’t work any more. He needed someone, and I remembered a girl who’d been in looking for work, who had a pretty figure, and was about the right size—a magician’s assistant has to be small, so she can climb into baskets, slip out of cabinets, and so on, without having to squeeze. Her name was Edith Conlon—she’s sitting right over there. I sent for her and introduced her to him.”

  After that Sally’s manner changed. With eyes on the floor, face pinking up, she went on: “Then in just a few days I began to suspect my husband, and rumors began reaching me. I accused him then and made him admit the truth, that he was unfaithful to me, with Edith. I locked my door from then on, and we were married in name only. Then, after some time, at least two years, I would say, my husband’s father died, and his attitude seemed to change. He began hinting that we should ‘make up,’ as he called it. To that I said nothing, and don’t know now how I felt. I had been horribly hurt, and whether I could forget, even though I forgave, I have no idea at all. But I thought I should listen to him and to give him the chance to talk. To get things started somehow, I told him one day that as I would be up that night much later than usual, entertaining my mother at dinner, with two friends I had also invited, we could talk after they left—if he could come home early. I meant, as he well understood, if he omitted his visit to Edith. And he said: ‘It’s a date.’ It was the last time I saw him alive. He didn’t come at all, and I supposed he had changed his mind. But next day came the horrible news that he was dead. And next night, Mr. Kuhn, came the still more horrible news that Edith had seen my car, or had told the police that she had, driving away from the accident. And the day after that I found, tucked away in my husband’s desk, a bill for insurance premiums on a policy I knew nothing about!”

  Sally’s voice became strident, and her eyes took on a glitter not quite so ladylike. During her recital, as the words “suspect,” “rumor,” “admit,” and “suppose” kept getting into it, the judge looked toward Mr. Pender, as Clay did, apparently assuming he would object. However, he didn’t. He said nothing until it was his turn to cross-examine, and then, after studying his notes as though baffled, he asked: “Mrs. Gorsuch, when you found this bill for insurance premiums, what did you do about it?”

  “I—had it looked into at once.”

  “By whom, if you don’t mind?”

  “... By—the police, of course.”

  “Why the police?”

  “Well, why not? They were in charge, weren’t they?”

  “Object!” exclaimed Mr. Kuhn, as though bored. “What she did is evidence. Why she did it is immaterial, incompetent, and irrelevant, as counsel well knows.”

  “Withdraw the question,” said Mr. Pender.

  Once more consulting his notes, and once more seemingly puzzled, he asked: “Did you, Mrs. Gorsuch, before calling the police, call the insurance company?”

  “No—I had no reason to.”

  “No reason? On finding a premium bill for insurance payable, now that your husband was dead? And possibly payable to you?”

  “It was payable to her, Mr. Pender. To Edith.”

  “Did it so state on the bill?”

  “... I—don’t just now recollect.”

  “What difference does it make?” asked Mr. Kuhn. “We have the bill. Here it is—take it, Nat. Enter it as an exhibit—let her see it—and let’s get on!”

  “I can try my own case, thanks.”

  “I’m not much impressed,” said the judge, “by sparring matches between counsels. If it matters, Mr. Pender, why can’t the bill be entered?”

  “What matters,” said Mr. Pender, “is this witness—her animus against the defendant, her part in this prosecution, and above all, her veracity.”

  “You mean, if she knew the beneficiary—?”

  “She knew about the insurance.”

  “You may answer,” the judge told Sally.

  “Did the bill name Miss Conlon?” asked Mr. Pender.

  “I said I don’t recollect!”

  Sally almost screamed it, her eyes flashing at Mr. Pender, so several jurors leaned forward in surprise, seeing a woman very different from the quiet widow in black who had first taken the stand. And even the judge frowned. “Mrs. Gorsuch,” he said quietly, “this passes credence. You’re not on trial here—you can’t decide which questions you answer and which you don’t. You’re a witness for the state, and you’re under oath. You must answer or be found in contempt.”

  “All right, then, it didn’t.”

  “Then you already knew who the beneficiary was?”

  “All right, suppose I did?”

  “And you did know about the insurance—it was not something you knew nothing about, as you so affectingly told us just a few moments ago?”

  “What difference does that make?”

  Mr. Kuhn barked it, but Mr. Pender answered mildly: “None—except to make her ad
mit—let the jury hear her admit—that in one respect at least she has not been telling the truth.”

  “Answer,” said the judge.

  “All right, but it slipped my mind!” Sally snapped it peevishly, but two of the jurors laughed.

  “And so you called the police?”

  “I certainly did.”

  “With the first evidence against Miss Conlon?”

  “But not the last, Mr. Pender. And so you get it straight, anything I could do to help convict her, that woman sitting there, who tried to put this on me, I did do, and mean to keep on doing.”

  Hand-clapping broke out in the rear of the court, and the bailiff banged his gavel. But the jurors stared at Sally, struck once more, perhaps, by her vitriolic manner. “Thank you,” said Mr. Pender.

  “Is that all?” asked Sally.

  “No, Mrs. Gorsuch. Not quite.”

  Mr. Pender now began probing the marriage and why it had broken up. Once more Mr. Kuhn objected, and as the judge turned to him Mr. Pender reflected a moment and then began to talk. “Your honor,” he said, “the defense hasn’t opened its case, and so I haven’t outlined what it’s going to be. But in the light of these objections, it might be well if I cleared things up a bit. Left to my own devices, I would have preferred a simple defense, the immemorial stratagem of shooting this case full of holes, having Miss Conlon say nothing, and let the jury’s good sense give this preposterous accusation the rebuke it so richly deserves. However, I’m stopped: my client won’t have this defense. She won’t come to court and let me, as she feels, tacitly admit her guilt ‘except that they can’t prove it.’ She insists on the defense she has made from the beginning, that she saw Mrs. Gorsuch’s car at the scene of the death, that this car, by sneaking up without lights and suddenly blowing its horn, caused the deceased to swerve, and thereby killed him. That’s what she told the police, and that’s what, says the state, ‘turned out to be false.’ And I thought it was, I confess. I tried to persuade her of the part imagination might have played in what she saw that night, and I tried in vain. And then, and then”—here Mr. Pender let emotion creep into his voice—“it devolved on me, became my duty to her, to look around a bit, to ascertain if evidence existed that her story could be true. Not only, I emphasize, that she thinks she’s speaking the truth. That I’ve never doubted. But also that the truth could be as she speaks it!”