I could see the jury wasn’t impressed by this theory. The DA’s constant reminder that Delaney couldn’t have taken off the back of the TV set made Hunt’s suggestion a waste of time.
“I am in the position to demonstrate to you how Delaney got hold of the screwdriver and how he did in fact take off the back of the set,” Hunt went on. “I would like to put Dr Studdley on the stand again.”
While Studdley walked to the stand, I saw the jury were showing interest and the DA was scowling at Hunt.
“Three days ago, doctor,” Hunt said to Studdley, “I telephoned you and asked you to arrange something for me. Would you tell the court what it was I asked you to do?”
“You asked me to find a patient who had the exact symptoms that Delaney had,” Studdley said.
“And did you find such a patient?”
“Certainly. It wasn’t difficult. I have at least six patients under my care who have exactly the same symptoms as Delaney had.”
Hunt turned to the judge and asked permission for the patient to take part in a demonstration.
The DA got to his feet, roaring objections.
There was a legal huddle between the judge, Hunt and the DA. Finally, it was decided that the DA should have the opportunity of examining the case papers of Delaney and the patient from Studdley’s clinic and to call his own medical expert to watch the demonstration which was to be held at Blue Jay cabin.
On that note the court adjourned for the day.
IV
The following morning there was a big gathering in the lounge of Blue Jay cabin. Besides the judge and jury, there were the two medical experts, Boos, Maddox, Hunt, the DA and myself.
Seated in Delaney’s wheel chair was a thin, delicate looking man whose name was Holman.
Hunt asked him to go to the storeroom and see if he could get a screwdriver from the toolbox.
Holman trundled himself down the passage, followed by the jury and anyone else who could squeeze into the crowded passage.
As a witness for the prosecution, I got a front row view.
We all watched Holman manoeuvre the chair into the storeroom and hook the stick over the side of the toolbox. He took a little time judging the distance and moved the chair slightly closer to the shelf. Then he tipped the box over.
The box fell slap in his lap. Several of the tools spilled out onto the floor, but both screwdrivers remained in his lap.
“You see,” Hunt said mildly. “It was really very simple. The screwdriver never reached the floor.”
He got Holman to do the trick five times, and each time the screwdrivers dropped into Holman’s lap.
I could see the DA was looking uneasy by now and the jury were glancing at each other significantly.
“Now we’ll see about taking the back off the set,” Hunt said. “Let’s return to the lounge.”
We all followed Holman as he trundled the chair along the passage.
Hunt said to him, “See if you can reach those two screws, Mr Holman.”
Holman wheeled the chair up to the set.
“It can’t be done,” he said as he put out his arm. He was at least eighteen inches from the screws.
“Okay,” Hunt said quietly. “Now I want you to imagine you are a desperate man and no matter how much it hurts, no matter how great the effort, it is essential for you to get at those two screws. I want you to imagine that, after you have taken the screws out, then you are going to commit suicide.”
A glass of water was put on an occasional table by Holman’s side.
“Now go ahead,” Hunt said. “Try to get at those screws.”
There was a sudden tension in the room that you could feel. Sweat trickled down my face as I leaned forward, my eyes, like everyone’s eyes, glued on the man in Delaney’s chair.
Holman manoeuvred his chair close to the TV set. Then he put his hands on the arms of the chair and raised his helpless body a few inches off the seat of the chair. He remained like that for several seconds. He then dipped his head forward and at the same time gave the chair a little push back. The chair slid away from him as he let go of the arms.
Before anyone could move, he had pitched forward, coming to the floor with a sickening crash.
A police officer started forward, but Hunt stopped him.
The fall had obviously badly shaken Holman, who lay motionless, face down before the TV set.
Hunt went to him and squatted down beside him.
“Are you all right, Mr Holman?” he asked, an anxious note in his voice.
“Yes, I’m all right.”
The thin, shaky voice was a whisper in the room.
Then the paralysed man began to move slightly. He pushed himself over on his side. By him was the screwdriver. He picked it up, then undid the two fixing screws and pulled off the back of the set. From where he lay he had no trouble in reaching the two screws.
While everyone in the room watched him in tense and utter silence, he rolled onto his other side, reached out and picked up the glass of water. He drank a little of the water, then dropped the glass as he sank face down on the floor.
“Hold it!” Hunt said. He looked around the lounge until he spotted me. “Mr Regan! Come here, please.”
I joined him beside Holman’s motionless body.
“Look at this man. Was that how you found Delaney? Look at him carefully. Was that how you found him?”
“Yes,” I said. “That was just the way he was lying.”
And that was the turning point of the trial.
Back in the courtroom that afternoon, the DA put up a fight, but he knew he was licked. Hunt had created too much doubt in the minds of the jury. His closing speech was powerful and stirring. He said that no man nor woman with any sense of responsibility could convict Gilda on such flimsy evidence and he demanded an immediate acquittal.
The jury were out for two hours.
They were the longest two hours I have ever lived through. When they came back, they all looked at Gilda, and I knew that she was free.
The foreman said they found her not guilty, and there was quite a demonstration in court.
Gilda stood beside Hunt. She was very white, and I could see she was breathing quickly by the rise and fall of her breasts.
When she left the courtroom, she didn’t look in my direction and I hurried after her, but I lost her in the crowd.
As I was pushing my way to the exit, I bumped into Maddox, who grimed at me, his expression wolfish.
“That was a neat trick,” he said. “She was lucky. Well, she didn’t get my money, and that’s what I care most about.”
Lowson Hunt joined him.
“This time you were wrong,” he said, his thin face showing his triumph. “I knew I’d get her off.”
“Wrong?” Maddox said. “She was saved by a trick. I’ll say I wasn’t wrong! She’s as guilty as hell!”
Leaving Hunt staring after him, Maddox walked down the steps to where his car was waiting.
CHAPTER IX
I
I HAD had a letter from the radio engineering firm in Miami who said that they could fit me into their organization.
Although the money they offered was lower than I had been earning on my own, I had decided to take the job as it would get me out of California, and it would give me a living until I could look around for something better.
It was my great hope and my wish that Gilda would come with me. I had no idea where she was staying in Los Angeles. As soon as I got back to my cabin, I called George Macklin and asked him where I could find her.
He was abruptly hostile.
“I can’t give you Mrs Delaney’s address. She left a few hours ago for New York. If you care to write to her, I will have the letter forwarded to her.”
This news that Gilda had gone to New York was a real jolt to me until I realized that she probably was trying to escape all the publicity and the newspaper men, and when she knew of my plans, she would join me.
I said I would write.
When I sat down to write the letter, I found the task harder than I had imagined. There was so much I wanted to say to her and so much I wanted to explain.
I told her I was going to Miami and I gave her my address there. I explained about the job. I said I loved her; that I wanted her to join me and I wanted us to start a new life together. I said I hoped she would feel she could love me again now that she knew I hadn’t been responsible for Delaney’s death. I asked her to write me in Miami, saying she was going to join me.
On my way down to the station to take the train to Miami, I left the letter at Macklin’s office.
I settled down quickly in Miami. I had a two-room apartment, and I worked hard, but there was no joy in life for me, for I didn’t hear from Gilda. I wrote again to her and sent the letter to Macklin. He didn’t bother to acknowledge it.
Every time the postman came, I rushed to the door, hoping that a letter would be there from her. Every time the telephone bell rang I had the same sensation, hoping that she was calling from New York to say she had decided to join me.
But she didn’t write and she didn’t call, and after three months, I realized I had lost her. That was the time I really suffered for what I had done. I loved her, and to lose a woman one loves is something a lot worse than pain.
After a year, the ache had gone, but I still thought of her. By this time I was in charge of the department dealing with custom-made radio sets and I was making a reasonable living.
Fifteen months after the trial, fifteen months of not hearing a word from her, I was called to the boss’s office, and he asked me how I would like to open a branch shop in New York, selling discs and custom-made sets.
It was a chance I wasn’t likely to refuse. At the end of the month, I packed my things, left a forwarding address with the woman who had an apartment next to mine and flew up to New York.
Here at last, I told myself, I was within reach of Gilda. Even after those long, dreary fifteen months, I was still in love with her and continually thought of her. If I were lucky enough to meet her, I still hoped to be able to persuade her to marry me.
It was an odd sensation to find myself living in the same city as she and never knowing if I Would run into her. It brought back the ache in my heart.
Then one day, fate or whatever you like to call it, took a hand.
A customer of mine who came to the shop pretty often to buy Long Play records decided one afternoon he would like to buy a custom-made radiogram.
His name was Henry Fuller. He was short and fat, and nearly seventy as made no difference. He was rich. I could tell that by his clothes, his manner and the chauffeur-driven Cadillac, so when he began to talk about a custom-made set, I knew I was heading for a big order.
I told him what I could build for him, and I didn’t cut my corners. I said the best thing, if he were interested, was for me to come out to his place and look at the room and find out what the acoustics were like.
“You do that, Regan,” he said, and I could see he was pleased. He was the kind of man who expected service and didn’t care what he paid for it. “You run out this afternoon. I won’t be there; but my wife will. I’ll tell her you are coming.”
Because it was the rule of the firm to make sure of the customer’s rating before building expensive sets, I called the Credit Investigation people and asked for a report on Fuller.
They told me he was a first-class risk. He was a stockbroker and worth at least four million dollars. He had a swank apartment on Riverside Drive. He had been married three times, and he had married his third wife only six months ago.
Fuller’s apartment was a penthouse job with a magnificent roof garden and a splendid view over the City.
The wrought-iron front door was opened by an English butler who looked as if he had stepped out of the movies.
He took me into a lounge that was every inch of forty feet long. The decor was typically eighteenth century in style, extremely elegant, and the walls were panelled with carved pine. A quiet, luxurious richness brooded over the room that was set off by two big Italian Renaissance paintings that looked good enough to be genuine.
The butler left me in the lounge and crossed the hall into another room.
I heard him say, “The person, madam, is here about the radio.”
A woman said, “All right, Harkness, I’ll see him,” and the butler went away.
The sound of the woman’s voice sent a creepy sensation through me.
Then Gilda came into the room.
She stopped abruptly and stared at me.
She was wearing a bottle-green dress with leather tags at the collar and pockets: a simple thing, but its cut shouted its price.
Her bronze-coloured hair was now piled high on the top of her beautifully shaped head. Her make-up was flawless. Around one of her wrists was a heavy gold bangle set with semi-precious stones. She looked wonderful.
For perhaps a second, bewilderment, fear and then anger chased across her face. Then she recovered herself, and her face became expressionless and wooden.
“What are you doing here?” she asked as she moved into the room, carefully shutting the door behind her.
“Gilda! I’ve been looking every place for you! Didn’t you get my letters?”
The sight of her set my heart thumping and I started towards her.
“Keep away from me!”
The tone in her voice brought me to a standstill as if I had run into a brick wall.
“Why didn’t you write, Gilda? I’ve been waiting and hoping . . .” I stopped as I saw her eyes travelling over me critically and contemptuously.
I knew I didn’t strike much of a figure. My suit and shoes were shabby, and my hands were none too clean. I was a radio engineer: no more, no less, and I was out of place against, this background of richness and luxury.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“I’ve come about the radiogram. Gilda! Don’t look at me like that! For God’s sake — I love you!” Then I paused, frowning at her. “But what are you doing here? Are you his secretary?”
“No. I am his wife.”
I felt as if someone had stepped up to me and had slugged me under the heart.
“You mean you’re Fuller’s wife?” I said. “You married that old ruin? You? I don’t believe it!”
“I am Mrs Henry Fuller,” she said, her voice flat and cold. “You are nothing to me now. Will you please remember that? Nothing at all.”
I stood there, staring at her, feeling pain eating into my heart.
“Why, sure,” I said. “Congratulations, Gilda. You seem to have struck it pretty rich.”
“If you think you can blackmail me,” she said, and there was a vicious note in her voice that shocked me, “you’re mistaken. Don’t try anything like that with me or you’ll find out just how mistaken you are.”
“Blackmail you? Why should I blackmail you? Gilda: don’t talk like that! I love you! I’ve never stopped thinking about you!”
“It was because of you I had to stand trial for my life,” she said, her forget-me-not blue eyes glittering. “That’s something I’ll never forgive you for. Now get out!”
“But your husband wants me to build him a radiogram,” I said.
“I’ll explain to my husband. Now get out! I’m not having you here! Get out and keep away from me!”
“All right,” I said, suddenly deflated. “I won’t bother you, Gilda. I’ll keep away. I’d like to say I’m glad things have come out right for you. I wish you happiness.”
She turned her back on me and walked to the far end of the room and began to leaf through a magazine.
The butler let me out. I rode down in the express elevator too stunned to think or even feel.
Three weeks later I read in the newspaper of Henry Fuller’s death.
He had fallen down the terrace steps of his roof garden and had broken his neck. There was to be an inquest.
Something that was morbid and frightening inside me
urged me to go to the inquest.
The little courtroom was crowded with fashionably dressed people. I got a seat right at the back out of sight of those sitting up in front.
As I sat down I saw with a start of surprise that Maddox of the National Fidelity was in the seat next to mine.
He gave me a sardonic grin as he nodded to me.
“Up on a business trip,” he said breezily. “I thought I couldn’t miss this performance. Well, well: history repeats itself, doesn’t it? She’s learning, and learning fast. The poor old dope wasn’t insured, so she hasn’t much to worry about.”
Before I could realize just what he was saying, Gilda came in with George Macklin. She was in black and she looked lovely. She was pale and she held a handkerchief in her hand.
Macklin steered her to a chair. He seemed very solicitous and somehow possessive.
The Coroner treated her as if she were made of egg shells.
From the evidence there had been a party at Fuller’s apartment. Most of the guests had been pretty high. Fuller had been drinking whisky and champagne all the evening, and he had been very unsteady on his legs. It had been a hot night, and the party had moved out into the roof garden after dinner.
There were thirty steps leading down to a second terrace. Most of the party had gone down there to get a closer look at the lights of the City.
Fuller and Gilda had remained at the top of the steps. Suddenly Fuller was seen to stumble. Then he fell. Gilda had made a desperate grab at his arm, but she had been too late.
He was dead when they reached him.
Maddox muttered to me, “That’s what I call a four million dollar push. A poor old drunk like Fuller would be child’s play to her.”
There was no trouble about the verdict. Everyone had seen the accident. The Coroner was careful not to stress the fact that Fuller was drunk. He said apparently Fuller had become suddenly dizzy and had lost his balance. He expressed his sympathy for the widow, and then everyone drifted out, looking sorrowful.
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