Erle Gardner - The Case of the Drowning Duck

“Very well,” Mason said, “I will make my point in this way. Miss Cromwell, it was possible for you to go out of the back door of your apartment and, by climbing over a low wooden railing, get on the back porch of Milter’s apartment, wasn’t it?”

“I suppose a person could have done so.”

“Did you ever do so?”

There was something of triumph in her eyes. “No,” she said flatly and in a tone of cold finality.

“You hadn’t done so on the evening in question?”

“Certainly not.”

“You hadn’t seen Leslie Milter on that evening?”

“I had seen him earlier in the evening when he entered his apartment.”

“You hadn’t been visiting in his apartment?”

“No, sir.”

“And Leslie Milter wasn’t fixing a drink of hot buttered rum for you when the doorbell rang, and he didn’t then tell you to go back over to your apartment?”

“No, sir.”

“Now, you have mentioned that you saw the defendant leaving the apartment. Had you been keeping a watch on the apartment earlier in the evening?”

“No, sir. I wasn’t keeping a watch on it when I saw the defendant leave. I simply happened to be standing there at the bay window.”

“Why were you standing at the bay window?”

“I simply happened to be there.”

“Could the defendant have looked up and seen you?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Why?”

“Because I was looking out. He would have had to look in .”

“And he couldn’t have done so?”

“Certainly not.”

“You mean to say that he couldn’t have seen you standing there in that window because there was no light behind you?”

“Of course.”

“Then the room must have been dark.”

She hesitated a moment, then said, “Yes, I guess it was. It may have been.”

“The lights were not on in that room?” Mason asked.

“No, sir. I guess not.”

“And the shades were up?”

“Why... I... I’m not certain.”

“Do you want this Court to believe that you saw the witness through a drawn shade?” Mason asked.

“No, I didn’t mean that.”

“What did you mean, then?”

For a moment, she was trapped, and there was desperation on her face. Then she thought of a way out and said triumphantly, “I thought your question related to whether all the shades were up or down. I knew that the shade on that one window had not been drawn, but I couldn’t remember about the others.”

She smiled triumphantly, as much as to say, “You thought you had me that time, didn’t you? But I got out of it.”

Mason said, “But there were no lights in the room.·”

“No. I’m certain there were none.”

“For what purpose did you enter that darkened room?” Mason asked.

“Why, I... I just wanted something in there.”

“The window at which you were standing was near the door on the side farthest removed from the door?”

“Yes, on the side farthest away from the door.”

“And the light switch is near the door, is it not?”

“Yes.”

“So that, when you entered this room in search of something, which you can’t now recall, you didn’t turn on the light switch, but you did walk all the way across this darkened room to stand at the window, looking down at the door of Leslie Milter’s apartment?”

“I was just standing there — thinking.”

“I see. Now, shortly after that, when I appeared at the apartment and rang the doorbell trying to get in, you came down the stairs from your apartment, did you not?”

“Yes.”

“And talked with me?”

“Yes.”

“And we walked a few feet together, up toward the center of town?”

“Yes.”

“And you went to the stage office, did you not?”

The district attorney was gloating now. “Your Honor, I must object. This examination certainly is going far afield. Where this witness went, or what she did after she had left that apartment house, is certainly not proper cross-examination. It’s incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial, and too remote in point of time to have any possible bearing upon the case. The Court will bear in mind that this entire evidence has been introduced for a very limited purpose.”

Judge Meehan nodded, said, “This Court will hear argument on it, Mr. Mason, if you wish to argue it, but it would seem that the position taken by the district attorney is correct.”

“I would think so,” Mason said. “I should think that it was quite correct, and I think I have no more questions of this young woman. Thank you very much, Miss Cromwell.”

Plainly she had expected a pitched battle with Mason, and his calm acceptance of her statements, which were so directly at variance with the statements she had previously made to him, came as a surprise.

She was just about to leave the witness stand when Mason said casually, “Oh, one more question, Miss Cromwell. I notice Raymond E. Allgood is in the courtroom. Do you know him?”

She hesitated, then said, “Yes.”

“Do you know his secretary, Sally Elberton?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever made any statement to either of them, claiming that you were the wife of Leslie Milter?” Mason asked.

“I... That is...”

“Will you stand up, Miss Elberton, please?”

The blond young woman got to her feet very reluctantly.

“Haven’t you ever told this woman that you were Leslie Milter’s common-law wife?” Mason asked.

“I didn’t say I was a common-law wife,” the witness said. “I told her to lay off of him, and...” She caught herself abruptly in mid-sentence, dammed the stream of words which had started to pour from her mouth.

As she realized the effect of what she had said, as she looked around at the curious eyes focussed upon her, she dropped slowly back into the witness chair as though her knees had suddenly lost their strength.

“Go on,” Mason said. “Go right ahead and finish what you were about to say.”

She said indignantly, “You trapped me into that. You made me think it was all over, and then got that woman to stand up, and...”

“What have you against that woman, as you term her?... That’s all, Miss Elberton. You may be seated again.”

Sally Elberton settled back into her seat, conscious of the craning necks of spectators; then all eyes were once more upon Alberta Cromwell.

“All right,” the witness said, as though suddenly making up her mind to see it through, “I’ll tell you the whole truth. What I told you was the absolute truth except I was trying to cover up on that one thing. I was the common-law wife of Leslie Milter. He never did marry me. He told me that it wasn’t necessary, that we were married just as legally as though we’d been married in a church, and I believed him. I lived with him as his wife, and he always introduced me as his wife; and then this woman came along and turned his head completely. She made him want to get away from me. I knew he’d been stepping out on me before, but it had been just here and there, the way a man will. This was different. She’d completely turned his head, and...”

The dazed district attorney, suddenly gathering his presence of mind, interrupted to say, “Just a moment, Your Honor. It seems to me this is also too remote and distant, that it’s incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial, and...”

“I think not,” Judge Meehan ruled sternly. “This witness is now making a statement in direct contradiction to a statement which she made under oath a few minutes earlier. She is admitting that she falsified a part of her testimony. Under the circumstances, the Court wants to hear every bit of explanation this witness wants to make. Go right ahead, Miss Cromwell.”