Erle Gardner - Beware the Curves

“Not for me,” I said, “I’m driving a car.”

Barney Quinn held the neck of the bottle over the glass until the gurgling sounds changed from the low-pitched gloog-gloog to a high-pitched cluck-cluck-cluck.

“Co ahead and drive back,” he said. “I’ve got a load off my mind and I’m going to get the first good night’s sleep I’ve had since I started this damn case. Boy oh boy! What a smear! Wait till I see Irvine’s face when he walks into this one.”

“Now wait a minute,” I cautioned him. “Don’t be too damn sure. That boy Irvine is smart, and this Manning girl is keenly aware of his soulful eyes, his wide shoulders and his slim hips.”

Quinn picked up the signed statement. “Let me slap her in the face with that, and I don’t give a damn if she’s sleeping with the guy.”

I said, “Then you’d better get finished by tomorrow or she will be.”

He raised the glass and tossed off about half of the big drink of whisky. A slow smile suffused his features.

“Damn, but that feels good!” he said.

The morning session opened with Irvine calling a witness from New Orleans. The witness testified that he operated a store there, that he had sold the revolver introduced in evidence on behalf of the prosecution to the defendant John Dittmar Ansel some years earlier. He produced a firearms register bearing the signature of the defendant, and he identified the defendant.

There was no cross-examination.

“Now then, if the Court please,” Irvine said as a matter of routine, the tone of his voice showing that his spirit wasn’t in it, “I would like to move again to reinstate the evidence of the witness Manning.”

Judge Lawton had opened his mouth to deny the motion when Barney Quinn was on his feet.

“May I be heard, Your Honor?”

“It won’t be necessary,” Judge Lawton said.

“Very well, Your Honor, thank you, Your Honor. The defendant feels that, with the identification of the firearm in question, the testimony of the witness Manning has been connected up and the defendant withdraws his motion to strike the evidence of this witness.”

“You do what?”

“We withdraw our motion to strike out the evidence. The defendant believes that technically the evidence should now be permitted to stand.”

“Well, the Court doesn’t feel that way,” Judge Lawton snapped.

Irvine was quick to grab at the advantage. “The defendant has withdrawn his objection, withdrawn his motion to strike out the testimony of the witness Manning?”

“That is correct,” Quinn said.

Judge Lawton hesitated a long while.

“Under those circumstances,” Irvine said, “it would seem there is no question before the Court, and the testimony of this witness is reinstated.”

“Very well,” Judge Lawton said, and frowned at Quinn.

Thereafter, Drude Nickerson was called to the stand.

Nickerson, a paunchy, ward-heeler type, went back in his testimony to the time when he had been driving a taxicab on the night of the shooting. He identified Ansel as the man whom he had picked up at the airport some time after eight in the evening, the man who had been nervous and upset, the man whom he had driven to the residence of Karl Carver Endicott.

Quinn made only a perfunctory cross-examination of Nickerson.

The district attorney then called Cooper Franklin Hale to the stand.

Hale walked quietly to the stand, took the oath, gave his name and address, and eased himself cautiously into the witness chair, as though making certain there were no hidden wires or secret traps.

Hale testified that he had gone out to Endicott’s house the night of the shooting, that Endicott had received a visitor, had excused himself and had gone upstairs, that Hale had waited downstairs for Endicott to finish his business with the man who had interrupted the session by ringing the doorbell, that he had heard a revolver shot from upstairs, that he had started for the stairs and had seen the figure of a man dashing downstairs immediately after the shot had been fired. He identified the man as being the defendant John Dittmar Ansel.

Again Quinn asked a few questions.

“That’s the prosecution’s case, Your Honor,” Irvine said.

“If the Court please,” Quinn said, getting to his feet, “we were not given the opportunity to cross-examine the witness Manning. It was understood that she was withdrawn from the stand, and—”

“Her testimony was stricken out,” Irvine said, “and subsequently reinstated without any motion on the part of the defense for the right to cross-examine.”

“That makes no difference,” Judge Lawton ruled. “The understanding was the defendant was to have an opportunity to cross-examine this witness. The Court lost sight of that matter because the Court felt that — Never mind. The witness Manning will return to the stand for cross-examination.”

Helen had really prepared for the newspaper photographers.

Barney Quinn started in on her gently.

Wasn’t it true that she had told Mrs. Endicott about John Ansel being sent on a suicide expedition some two days before Karl Endicott met his death?

The witness admitted that it was true.

“Now isn’t it a fact,” Quinn went on, “that Karl Endicott telephoned you on the day of his death and told you that you had made an assertion to his wife that was false, that he desired an opportunity to explain his side of the matter to you, that he was very much concerned that you had taken office gossip as your source of information and had not given him a chance to explain?”

“Yes.”

“And didn’t you go out to his house at his request on the date of his death?”

“Yes.”

“And,” Quinn shouted, getting to his feet and leveling his finger at her, “didn’t you carry a .38 caliber Colt revolver in your purse that night?”

“It wasn’t in my purse. It was in my bra.”

“There is no reason to shout at the witness,” Irvine said in a low voice. “There is no call for all of these dramatics.”

Judge Lawton seemed completely bewildered. He looked from the suave district attorney to the attorney for the defense and then to the witness on the stand. “Proceed,” he said.

“And isn’t it a fact that, when you went out there that evening, the decedent, Karl Carver Endicott, your former employer, told you that he was expecting a visitor in the person of Cooper Franklin Hale, and didn’t he ask you to go upstairs and wait up there until after he had been able to get rid of Mr. Hale?”

“Yes.”

“And you went upstairs with him?”

“Yes.”

“Into a bedroom?”

“Yes.”

“And there Mr. Endicott discovered the weapon that you had in your possession?”

“Yes.”

“And what did he do with it?”

“He removed the weapon and chided me for carrying it.”

“And then what happened?”

“Then there was a ring at the doorbell, and Mr. Endicott told me that that was Mr. Hale and I would have to excuse him.”

“And then what?”

“Then he went downstairs and was down there for some fifteen minutes when the bell again rang and Mr. Endicott met the defendant at the front door.”

“Do you know it was the defendant?”

“I heard his voice.”

“You knew the defendant?”

“Yes.”

“You knew his voice?”

“Yes.”

“And what did Mr. Endicott do?”

“Took Mr. Ansel... I mean the defendant upstairs and into the den.”

“And this den adjoined the bedroom where you were waiting?”

“Yes.”

“And then what happened?”

“Mr. Endicott excused himself and entered the bedroom and told me that the situation had become more complicated than he had anticipated and that I had better go home, but that he would get in touch with me later on and arrange for a meeting”