Evan Hunter: The Paper Dragon

"No, the courses weren't numbered that way at Pratt."

"Did your husband ever make any reference to having seen a play called Catchpole ?"

"Certainly not."

"Or to the division insignia in that play?"

"No."

"An insignia with the number 105 in yellow on a black field?"

"No."

"No reference to a hundred and five?"

"No."

"Then where did it come from, Mrs. Driscoll? Was it perhaps the apartment number on Peter Malcom's door?"

"No, he lived in apartment 47."

"Was it your apartment number?"

"No."

"Was it your husband's APO number perhaps? When he was overseas.?"

"No, it was none of those things."

"Well now, I was really hoping, Mrs. Driscoll, that you could clear up the mystery for us, since you seem to have cleared up so many of the other troubling points. It seems however, that the thief's fingerprints are still very much in—"

"Don't say that," Ebie warned.

"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Driscoll. But since the theft of another man's work is the matter before this—"

"My husband didn't steal anyone else's work!"

"Then perhaps he may have mentioned to you how he hit upon that number, Mrs. Driscoll, if not by seeing it on the stage?"

"He did not see the play."

"How do you know?"

"He told me."

"Where did he get the number, then?"

Ebie hesitated.

"Do you know , Mrs. Driscoll?"

"Yes, I know," she whispered.

"What?" the clerk asked. "I'm sorry, I…"

"She said, 'Yes, I know,' " Brackman said.

"What?" the clerk said again.

"Yes, she knows ," McIntyre said.

"If you indeed know, Mrs. Driscoll," Brackman said wearily, "will you tell us?"

"Yes."

"Please."

"Yes," she repeated, and looked at Driscoll. He was still staring directly ahead of him. "The… the number isn't a… it isn't a hundred and five."

"Oh? What is it then?"

"Its… it's two numbers. It's a ten and… and a five."

"I see. It's a ten and a five," Brackman said, and smiled up at the judge. "But not a hundred and five."

"No."

"Mrs. Driscoll, perhaps you'd like to tell us the difference between a ten and a five in sequence, and the number a hundred and five."

"Yes."

"Please."

"The ten and the five are a date."

"What?" Brackman said.

"A date. It's ten slant five."

"I'm not sure I understand you, Mrs. Driscoll," McIntyre said. "By 'ten slant five,' do you mean 'ten virgule five?' "

"I don't know what 'virgule' means," Ebie said.

"Well…" McIntyre said, and rapidly scribbled onto the pad in front of him. "Is this it?" he asked, and held up the pad for her to see:

"Yes," Ebie said, "that's it. October 5th."

"October 5th," Brackman said musingly. "Of any particular year, Mrs. Driscoll, or just any year picked at random?"

"1950," Ebie said. She kept watching her husband, but he would not turn to meet her glance.

"October of 1950, I see," Brackman said. "October 5th in the year 1950. And what does that date commemorate? An anniversary, perhaps? Were you married on October 5th?"

"No."

"Did your husband go into the service on October 5th?"

"No."

"Was it your birthday?"

"No."

"Or his ?"

"No."

"Or Peter's?"

"No."

"Or anyone's ?"

"No."

"Then what was it, Mrs. Driscoll? Why did your husband attach such importance to this number, which you are now telling us is a date, ten virgule five, and not really a hundred and five? Perhaps you can tell us."

"October 5th was the date on a… a letter."

"What letter?"

"A letter I… a letter I wrote to my husband in Korea."

"I see."

"Yes," she said.

"Did you write your husband many letters while he was in Korea?"

"Yes."

"But he took the date from this one letter, is that it?"

"October 5th."

"Yes, that's quite clear. Did you also write to him on October 2nd, perhaps, or October 4th…"

"Every day."

"But this particular letter was the one he…"

"You… you asked if it was an anniversary."

"What?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"It was."

"Oh, it was an anniversary, I see. You remember now that it—"

"It was the anniversary of the… the death of our marriage," Ebie said, "the death he wrote about in his novel. He… he labeled his division the 105th as… as another one of his little jokes, a reminder that I had written my letter on the… the 5th of October… the letter that… that told what… what…"

"I think you have answered the question," Brackman said. He seemed suddenly alarmed. He turned from her swiftly and said, "Your Honor, I have no further—"

"I would like to hear the witness," McIntyre said.

"Your Honor…"

"You interrupted the witness before she had concluded her answer, and I would like to hear the rest of that answer now," McIntyre said. "Go on, Mrs. Driscoll."

"Yes," she said and nodded, but remained silent. She kept watching Driscoll, who would not turn to meet her gaze. The courtroom was silent.

"Mrs. Driscoll?"

"I wrote the letter because I loved him," she said. "I wrote it to explain."

She fell silent again. Driscoll did not look at her.

"I wrote and asked him to understand that I was… that I was telling him only because I loved him and… didn't want a lie between us for the rest of our lives. I asked him to understand."

Her hands were working nervously in her lap now, where only McIntyre could see them. She kept staring intently at her husband, but still he would not look at her. She shook her head as though sorry she had come this far, and then gave a small weary shrug, as though knowing she was committed and would have to go further. Her eyes were suddenly wet. She closed them immediately, and then lowered her head so that the judge would not see her tears. She did not raise her head again until she began speaking once more, and then she did so only to look at her husband. She cried soundlessly while she talked. The tears streamed down her face, but she did not wipe at them. She talked quietly and steadily, and she did not take her eyes from her husband, who never looked at her once during her long unbroken speech.

"I wrote to him because I had to tell him. We had been married that April, you see, and this was only September, the end of September. The truth was terrible, I know that now, I knew it then, I knew it was terrible but… in his book he described it as a plot to murder him, a theft of his life, his manhood, and it was never any of those things, never anything planned or schemed, only something that… one night… happened. He might have been able to understand, Dris might have, if only… but we had said 'forever' just that April, you see, and then he was gone in June, and this was… So how could it seem any less awful than it was, how could he believe I hadn't wanted it or expected it? I don't know, I don't know. We… were, I was upstairs in his apartment, I shouldn't have been there, I know it, I shouldn't have gone up when he asked me to. But I was lonely, Dris was gone, and he seemed so troubled, so in need. We talked, we… no, nothing explains it, nothing can explain it. It happened. Maybe I wanted it to happen, maybe Dris was right about that, I don't know. But it happened. I was twenty-two years old, and my husband was fighting a war in Korea, and I… I went to bed with Peter Malcom.

"I didn't love him, but I went to bed with him. So simple. So very simple. At first I thought I could live with the idea, forget what I'd done, forget I'd given myself to him. I'd always believed, you see, I'd been taught to believe it wasn't shameful to… to love someone. But this wasn't love, no. I couldn't deceive myself into thinking this was anything like love, the only man I ever loved was in Korea. I… I continued to write to him, I had to keep writing, my letters to him were the same for almost a week, lie after lie after lie, and then… then I couldn't bear it any longer, I knew I had to tell him the truth or allow the lies to destroy our marriage. Instead it was the truth that destroyed it.