Parnell Hall: The Naked Typist

Steve smiled. “It may not have been that important to Milton Castleton, but I submit, for reasons unknown to him, it may have been that important to you. You testified that you left Milton Castleton’s apartment and went straight home that evening?”

“Yes, I did.”

“I put it to you that you didn’t. Is it not a fact that after you left Milton Castleton’s apartment you went straight to the singles bar on Third Avenue and staked it out from across the street?”

“No, it is not.”

“I think it is. I think you arrived there shortly after David Castleton did. I think you looked through the window and saw him at the bar engaged in conversation with Marcie Keller, the woman who testified yesterday on the witness stand.

“Which of course puzzled you. David Castleton was there for a particular purpose, and he wouldn’t be paying attention to any young woman unless she was the one coming on to him. Be that as it may, I think you then retreated from the window and continued to watch the bar from across the street. I think you were there when the defendant, Kelly Clay Wilder, showed up. You saw her go in, and you saw her and David Castleton come out.

“I think you tailed them to the restaurant Gino’s, waited outside while they had their dinner and then tailed them back to his apartment.

“Where you ran into a strange situation. Two detectives were staking out the place. They didn’t see you because you saw them first and took pains to see that they didn’t.

“And how did you spot them before they spotted you? For that matter, how did you spot them at all? Very simple. Because one of the detectives happened to be the young woman you had already seen talking to David Castleton in the bar. So you knew what they were, and you knew who they were there for. So you stayed out of sight, watched and waited.

“And what happened? An hour later the defendant came out alone and walked back to her apartment. The detectives followed. You followed right behind. The defendant walked back to a brownstone apartment house and went inside. The detectives took up positions, staking it out. Minutes later, a light on the second-floor front window came on. You figured that was the best you could do. With the detectives watching, you couldn’t get close enough to read the bell. Not without being seen. But you noted down the address.

“What did you do then? You went straight to David Castleton’s apartment. He was surprised to see you, of course. He hadn’t known you would be tagging along, because that wasn’t part of the plan. I don’t know what you told him, but probably something like his grandfather had sent you as an afterthought. At any rate, you told him you’d been there, tailed the defendant to her home and found out where she lived. You still didn’t have her name, but now at least you had her address.

“You gave him that address. You told it to him and had him write it down. That was the address on the folded piece of paper in his pants pocket. That’s why he had only her address and not her name.

“Then you questioned him. How did it go? What had he found out? What did she want?

“What he said floored you. It was the worst of all. Exactly what you had feared. This woman had proof that Herbert Clay wasn’t guilty of the embezzlement. The proof was a computer disk of a memo, which you thought had long since been erased from the files. But here it was, come back to haunt you.

“David Castleton showed it to you. Put the disk in and called it up on the computer. And there it was. The missing memo from Herbert Clay.

“David Castleton was very excited about it. He was glad you were there. He couldn’t wait to tell everyone. He was going to tell his grandfather first thing in the morning.

“Which was something you simply couldn’t allow.”

Steve paused, looked up at the witness. “And that’s when you shot him, isn’t it, Mr. Danby?”

Phil Danby appeared completely unruffled. If anything, his face showed the trace of a faint smile. “I most certainly did not.”

“Oh, yes, you did. You shot him with Herbert Clay’s gun. The gun you found two years ago when you supervised the cleaning out of Herbert Clay’s desk, as you have already testified. It was right there, where Herbert Clay said it was. You found it and you took it. Probably well before his trial. You’d already framed him for embezzlement, but if that didn’t come off you wanted to be prepared to frame him for something else. I’m sure you never dreamed at the time it would eventually be used to frame his sister.”

Steve smiled. “Which is ironic, Mr. Danby. Because you didn’t know she was his sister, did you? That was serendipity, wasn’t it? You had the gun merely because it was a weapon that could not be traced to you. The police could figure David Castleton had taken it from Herbert Clay’s desk and the murderer had picked it up in his apartment and used it. What a monumental stroke of luck it must have seemed to you when you found out the defendant and Herbert Clay were actually related.

“But that’s what happened, isn’t it? You shot David Castleton, and you dropped the gun next to him on the floor. Then you took the computer disk and got out. As far as you were concerned, it was a perfect frame. Even if the gun couldn’t be traced to the defendant, there was enough evidence against her. You and Milton Castleton knew David had left to meet the defendant. Then there were the waiters, bartenders and cab drivers who could put them together. And the private detectives who could put her at the scene of the crime.

“You killed him between a half hour to an hour after she left, but no medical determination of the time of death could be that precise. And, as expected, without actually altering the facts, the medical examiner did everything possible to slant the time element in the prosecution’s favor.

“There was only one more thing, one more gap you had to plug. The original computer disk. You left David Castleton’s apartment and went straight back to Kelly Clay Wilder’s.

“The young woman detective was still on guard. She showed no signs of leaving. If she had, you might have broken in that night. As it was, you had to let it go. You went home, got what little sleep you could and reported to work the next morning at nine o’clock at Milton Castleton’s apartment. You were there when the police called to inform Milton Castleton of his grandson’s death.

“I don’t know exactly what happened after that. But Milton Castleton would be demanding immediate police reports, and being Milton Castleton he would get them. So you would know almost immediately of Kelly Clay Wilder’s arrest. Some time after that and before I talked to the defendant and went to her apartment, you broke away from Castleton’s long enough to go there and get the computer disk. You had no problem finding it-the copy had been marked X dash one. It followed the original would be marked simply X. You found it, you took it, verified what it was and then destroyed it.

“You did one more thing. You knew from what David Castleton had told you that Kelly Clay Wilder had found that memo in the backup system of the computer. You got into the backup system yourself, found the file and deleted it.

“That’s what you did, didn’t you Mr. Danby?”

Danby shook his head. “No, I did not.”

“Yes, you did, Mr. Danby. Because everyone has a weakness. I’m not sure what yours is, but I would guess it’s the stock market. I assume you gambled with speculative stocks and got overextended, even for a man with your income. Which is why you embezzled from your employer and subsequently framed Herbert Clay for the crime. Which is why that memo was so devastating to you. Isn’t that right, Mr. Danby?”

“No, it is not.”