Evan Hunter - The Paper Dragon

"Mr. Driscoll has claimed, your Honor has heard him testify, that the character Lieutenant Alex Cooper in The Paper Dragon is based upon himself, and yet when asked which specific incidents or events happened to him, James Driscoll, he was hard put to find any such events that were not common to both the book and the play. Lieutenant Cooper was idealistic, yes, but James Driscoll was not. Lieutenant Cooper was single, James Driscoll was not. Lieutenant Cooper had an affair with a nurse, James Driscoll did not. And all down the line, your Honor, we see this same disparity between what actually happened to James Driscoll and what happened to the officer supposedly based on himself. Did Mr. Driscoll ever have a man like Colman in his platoon? No. Was there a troublemaker in his platoon? No. Was there a homosexual? No. Was there a murder scheme? No. Was he ever the target of a planned murder? No. He claims first that the book is autobiographical, and then when pressed to tell us just how it is autobiographical, he can tell us only that he invented most of the incidents.

"I do not think I have to comment on the preposter-ousness of his Colman-iceman story, or the farfetched allusion to Eugene O'Neill's play, or Mr. Driscoll's* insistence that an obviously homosexual character in Catchpole was not at all homosexual and was not indeed the basis for the homosexual character in his book. We have Mr. Ralph Knowles's expert testimony — and was it not Mr. Genitori who said he was a highly respected and honored director? — we have his expert testimony that he did , in fact, combine two characters in the novel to form the single character of Colman in his film. And this , your Honor, is why James Driscoll insisted Colonel Peterson was not a homosexual, only because he knew very well that he had taken Peterson and Janus and combined them to form Colman, which process Knowles reversed in making his picture.

"And then, your Honor, we came to what I earlier called the thief's fingerprints and which I still maintain are the fingerprints of a thief, and I refer now to the labeling of the 105th Division."

A silence fell over the courtroom. In the silence, Driscoll heard the click of Ebie's handbag once again, and he turned to look at her and saw that she was straining forward in her seat now, leaning over at a sharp angle, her eyes on Brackman, her mouth drawn into a tight, narrow line.

"The 105th Division," Brackman repeated. "Here, your Honor, I do not think there can be any question whatever of coincidence. No one in this room would be willing to bet even fifty cents on correctly picking the same three digits in sequence, and yet that's exactly what Mr. Driscoll did, he picked three digits at random, one, oh, five, and they just happened to correspond with those same three digits in the play, even though the odds against this happening, as we saw, were a million to one. Now your Honor, that is too much to believe, and Mr. Driscoll knows it is too much to believe, and so he tells us he does not know how he hit upon those three digits, he honestly does not know how they happened to come to him, perhaps on the wings of a muse. Or more likely, your Honor, perhaps as the result of an error, the single error this thief made in his painstaking robbery. After the meticulous compilation of all his covering outlines and plots and maps, after the careful disguising of each and every character and event, here was the one mistake, here was the identifiable—"

Ebie rose.

She rose silently, with both hands tightly clutching her pocketbook, the knuckles white. It seemed for a moment as though she were simply going to leave the courtroom, as though she were unable to listen a moment longer to Brackman's accusations. But she did not move from where she stood in the jury box. She looked up at the judge. Brackman, seeing McIntyre's puzzled frown, stopped speaking and turned to face her.

"Your Honor," she said softly, "may I talk to Mr. Willow?"

Driscoll suddenly put his hand on her shoulder. She looked at him curiously, as though unable to read the gesture, and then turned again to the judge and plaintively inquired, "Your Honor?"

There was, for perhaps thirty seconds, total silence in the courtroom. Brackman did not object, although he was in the middle of his summation and any such interruption was forbidden and in fact unthinkable. Willow made no motion to recess, even though his client's wife had just asked if she could talk to him. The silence was complete, a stunned silence that stifled all action. Like children turning to their father for guidance when one of their peers has unforgivably transgressed, the lawyers looked toward the bench at the front of the courtroom, where McIntyre squinted in consternation, silent himself.

At last he said, "This Court will recess for ten minutes."

They returned to the courtroom at four minutes past eleven. McIntyre called the three attorneys to the bench, where they stood ranged before him, Willow in the center, Brackman and Genitori on either side of him. He fussed about in his chair, making himself comfortable. Then he folded his arms flat on the bench top, leaned forward, and brusquely said, "All right, Mr. Willow, what's this all about?"

"Your Honor," Willow said, "I would like to make application to reopen the case."

"For what purpose?"

"To submit additional testimony."

"Mr. Brackman?"

"Your Honor," Brackman said, "any additional testimony from the defendant at this point, after I've almost completed my summation, could only be injurious to my case. I respectfully submit…"

"That may be so, Mr. Brackman. I must say, Mr. Willow, that I have never had anything like this happen to me before."

"I believe we could find precedent for it, your Honor."

"Yes, I'm sure we could, Mr. Willow," McIntyre said, "especially if we looked at Section 31.45 of the Cyclopedia of Federal Procedure ."

"Your Honor, I'm not familiar with that section."

"I am , Mr. Willow."

"Forgive me."

"The section states, Mr. Willow — and next time you might wish to consult it before asking that a case be reopened — the section states that even after testimony has been entirely closed, the Court may receive additional evidence in its own discretion."

"Your Honor," Brackman said, "if this were a case before a jury…"

"It is not a jury case," McIntyre said, "but even if it were, Mr. Brackman, the Court could in its discretion permit additional testimony."

"I'm sorry, your Honor, I was not aware of that."

"I would like to remind Mr. Willow, however, that such additional testimony cannot be allowed for light reasons, such as to let in cumulative or immaterial evidence."

"Your Honor," Willow said, "I believe this testimony to be exceedingly important, and I know the record would be incomplete without it."

"If your Honor please," Genitori said, "I do not see how in good conscience we can exclude any testimony that may shed light on the matter before us."

"Mr. Brackman?"

"Your Honor, my summation was predicated on what the record already shows. If additional testimony…"

"I would have no objection," Willow said, "to Mr. Brackman making a second summation after the new testimony is given."

"Your Honor, I know you can in your discretion — you have just informed me that you can in your discretion reopen the case, but…"

"Don't you feel the record should be complete, Mr. Brackman?"

"Indeed, I do, your Honor. But I also feel Mr. Willow should have called all his witnesses when it was time for him to do so, and not—"

"Your Honor, this was unforeseen, and as much a surprise to me as it was to the Court."

"Well," McIntyre said flatly, "I will reopen the case."