Erle Gardner - Case of the Beautiful Beggar

“Daphne Shelby secured employment in that institution, using an assumed name and taking a job as a domestic for just long enough to surreptitiously aid Horace Shelby in making an escape. She took him to a motel known as the Northern Lights Motel. She placed him in Unit 21.

“From that day on, if the Court please, none of the real relatives of Horace Shelby have seen him or heard from him. The police were and are unable to find him. Horace Shelby, with the connivance of this defendant, vanished into thin air after making a will leaving everything to this defendant . He may well be dead.

“Moreover, and by the use of an ingenious fraud perpetrated upon the Court, and despite the appointment of a conservator, the defendant managed to get her hands on fifty thousand dollars of Horace Shelby’s funds.

“The decedent, Bosley Cameron, alias Ralph Exeter, was a friend of the Finchleys, and as such, familiar with the facts. It appears that in some way Exeter traced Horace Shelby to the Northern Lights Motel. The evidence will indicate that the defendant lured Exeter into the room occupied by Horace Shelby at a time shortly after Horace Shelby had left the place.

“The defendant went to a nearby Chinese restaurant, secured food in containers and, using the bottom of a glass toothbrush container as a pestle, and a tumbler in the motel as a mortar, ground up sleeping pills which had been given her to take on her trip in case she became unduly nervous.

“She placed this barbiturate in the food which was given Exeter, and after Exeter became unconscious, left him in the motel after first deliberately unscrewing the gas feed pipe which went to a vented heating appliance in the unit.

“Exeter’s body was found when a neighboring tenant smelled gas. He was quite dead. Death had apparently been due to the gas, but he had first been rendered unconscious by the barbiturate.

“This young woman then went to the Hollander-Heath Hotel, and when officers traced her there, hurriedly swallowed some barbiturates of the same brand as those which had been administered to Ralph Exeter, telling the officers a concocted story about how some chocolate she had taken had been poisoned.

“The obvious purpose of this was to lead the officers to believe that some third person had administered the poison to Ralph Exeter.

“Now. I would like to state to the Court that the reason this case is being prosecuted at this time is because of recent decisions of our higher courts aimed at protecting the innocent, but which unduly complicate the duties of a prosecutor and of the police.

“This young woman has refused to co-operate with us. She has refused to answer questions without her attorney being present. Her attorney has advised her to make no statement in regard to certain key matters, and, as a result, we are left with no alternative but to marshal the evidence that we have and present our case to the Court.

“We wish to call the Court’s attention to a matter which is, of course, elemental. At this time we only need to show that a crime has been committed and to show reasonable grounds for believing that the defendant perpetrated the crime. In that event, the Court is duty bound to hold the defendant for trial in the higher court.”

Mosher sat down.

Judge Kyle said, “If the proof bears out the statement, there is certainly no doubt that the Court should bind the defendant over for trial.

“This Court has frequently announced that some of the recent decisions protecting the rights of defendants sometimes boomerang and force the authorities to take official action, whereas if the authorities had more time for a detailed investigation such formal action might have been spared.

“However,” and here Judge Kyle smiled, “this Court has no authority to overrule decisions of our higher tribunals. You may proceed with the case.”

“May I make an opening statement?” Mason asked.

“Why, yes, if you desire,” Judge Kyle said, “although this is entirely unusual.”

Mason said, “The evidence will show that the Finchley’s had for years taken no interest in Horace Shelby. When they learned, however, that Shelby had become comparatively wealthy, they came to visit him and on finding that Shelby had made a will, or intended to make a will leaving his property to the defendant, they hustled the defendant off to the Orient and in the three months that they had Horace Shelby under their control, exasperated him to such a point that the man was desperate.

“Learning of their intentions to railroad him into a sanitarium, Shelby tried to get a substantial part of his fortune in the form of cash out from under the control of the Finchley’s so that he would have some money with which to fight the case as he saw fit. He therefore asked the defendant to take charge of that money.

“She tried to do so, but was prevented by an order of the Court appointing a conservator.

“As to the fifty thousand dollars which the prosecutor would have the Court believe the defendant had secured by artifice and fraud, the money was secured legally and through my efforts. It was given to the defendant, and she, in turn, gave the bulk of that money to Horace Shelby so that he would be able to spend his own funds.

“We expect to show that Ralph Exeter was a professional gambler indebted to other gamblers that the Finchley’s were, in turn, indebted to him, and that Exeter was the driving force behind this situation, suggesting to-the Finchley’s that they use their connection and relationship to Horace Shelby to raise immediate money.

“We expect to show, at least by circumstantial evidence, that Ralph Exeter found where Horace Shelby was located that Exeter made demands upon him, offering to let Shelby keep his liberty in return for a substantial cash payment.

“We expect to show that Shelby mashed up some sleeping pills which had been given him by the defendant, put them in food which was given Exeter for the sole purpose of enabling Shelby to escape from the clutches of his over-solicitous relatives.

“It is our contention that after the defendant had left the motel after the departure of Horace Shelby, while Ralph Exeter was asleep in the room, someone disconnected the gas pipe and asphyxiated Exeter.”

“You can prove this?” Judge Kyle asked.

“We can prove it,” Mason said.

Judge Kyle was thoughtful for a few moments, then said to Mosher, “Very well, put on your proof.”

Mosher called witness after witness, building an ironclad case of circumstantial evidence.

Dr. Tillman Baxter identified Daphne told of how she had applied for a job how she had enabled Horace Shelby to escape.

He described Shelby’s condition in technical terms. He was, he explained, suffering from the first definite stage of senile dementia that the Court had appointed a doctor. Dr. Grantland Alma, to examine Horace Shelby that that examination was to have taken place on the afternoon of the day when Shelby had been spirited from his institution.

Dr. Baxter said he had been looking forward to having his diagnosis confirmed by an independent psychiatrist, but that the action of the defendant in enabling Horace Shelby to escape had foreclosed any opportunity to learn of the man’s actual condition.

Lieutenant Tragg told of finding Ralph Exeter, also known as Bosley Cameron, dead in the motel unit at the Northern Lights. He had found in the room a glass tumbler. In the glass tumbler was the glass container in which new toothbrushes are sold. This had been used as a pestle in grinding up pills which were identified as sleeping pills of a trade name known as Somniferone that these were the same pills which were subsequently taken by the defendant in the hotel at a time when her attorney visited her, apparently to warn her of the impending visit of the officers.