Leave Her to Heaven (33 page)

F
OR RUTH, those weeks of waiting were made more easily endurable because she found a friendly companionship in the matron at the jail. Mrs. Sayward was a cheerfully voluble woman, widowed some years before, with two children near their teens; and she often came with her knitting to sit outside Ruth's cell, her tongue never still.

‘You won't mind it so much after you get used to it here,' she told Ruth the first day. ‘It's the same as home to me. My father was sheriff for twenty years, till he died; so I as good as grew up in the jail. It's hitched right onto the sheriff's house, you know, same as a shed and barn. When my husband died it was like coming home, to come to work here. ‘Course, I'm only part time, when there's some woman here, and that don't happen often, and mostly they're poor company; but it's a real pleasure to be here with you.' And when Ruth asked whether she found the work depressing, she chuckled heartily and said: ‘Land sakes, I find any work depressing, far as that goes. I've got a lazy streak in me a yard wide. But jail's the same as any other place after you get used to it. Half the folks that get locked up are just as nice as most folks outside.' She tossed her head. ‘And some of 'em are nicer.' She added cheerfully: ‘And I need the money, with two young ones to take care of; and then of course it's real int'resting too, the different cases and all.'

The fact that it was Mrs. Sayward who on the morning of her trial came to summon Ruth made the ordeal more easily tolerable. ‘Well, it's time to go,' she said, and added with approval
‘You look real nice, my dear.' She helped Ruth into her coat, keeping up a cheerful flow of conversation. ‘Sheriff's going to drive us down, him and Deputy Hatch. Guess't he wants to get his picture in the paper. Don't hold it against him. He's a real good-hearted man.'

When Sheriff Sohier escorted them out to his waiting car, Ruth faced half a dozen photographers. They backed away before her, their cameras half-hiding their faces so that they seemed father less than human. Deputy Hatch was waiting in the car, in the front seat. The sheriff drove, and Ruth sat with Mrs. Sayward. The photographers leaped into other cars and raced ahead, so that when she reached the courthouse she had to face them a second time; and she came into the dimly lighted hallways with a sense of escape. The sheriff cleared a way for her through the curious crowd, and a moment later she and Mrs. Skyward were alone. They had only a little while to wait before Deputy Hatch appeared to summon them; and with him on one side, Mrs. Sayward on the other, Ruth was ushered into the courtroom.

Her first impression was that there were hundreds of people in the room; and for a moment she hesitated, checked by the solid impact of so many staring eyes. Then the deputy's firm hand guided her, and she saw Harland and went toward him, and took the waiting chair between him and Mr. Pettingill, and Roger Pryde beyond Mr. Pettingill leaned toward her with a smiling word, and Harland pressed her hand. The deputy and Mrs. Sayward took chairs just behind her.

Ruth forced herself to look around. The courtroom was Oil the second floor of the courthouse, with windows on three sides. Except in the empty jury box, every seat and bench was occupied. Beyond the bar enclosure, facing the jury box, tables for reporters had been set, and she saw there twenty or thirty men and women, some simply watching her, some already writing, two or three busy with sketch pads, their eyes forever lifting to scan her face. Quinton and Mrs. Parkins and Attorney General Shumate and a young man Ruth had not seen before were at a table just beside
this one at which she sat. When Judge Andrus took his place upon the bench, she saw a pink-cheeked, white-haired man with kindly eyes beneath heavy black brows that were like a band across his countenance. Beneath his high bench at a long table sat the clerk, and the court stenographer was at the end just under the witness stand on the judge's left.

The selection of a jury was not a tedious procedure. Mr. Pettingill, accepting Harland's insistence that he put nothing in the way of swift progress, used no peremptory challenges. Quinton was more demanding; but an hour after court convened, the jury was completed and Quinton rose to make his opening.

Ruth guessed that he had dressed with care for this occasion. His suit was new, his thin hair neatly brushed, his collar a little too tight. For once his face wore no trace of a smile. He was flushed, and she foresaw that he would soon be perspiring; but he spoke well, in concise and careful sentences. His precision had in it something which despite her courage she found affrighting.

‘Ruth Harland is here brought to trial,' he began, ‘upon an indictment charging that on September 5, almost two years ago, she deliberately and maliciously planned and carried through the murder by poison of her adoptive sister, Ellen, the former wife of Richard Harland. The defendant herself has since married Richard Harland.'

Ruth heard her own name with no sense of familiarity. It might have been a stranger's. Quinton went on:

‘Ellen Berent Harland was the daughter of Professor and Mrs. Randolph Berent, who were for many years summer residents of Bar Harbor. Ruth Berent Harland was their niece, the daughter of Professor Berent's brother. While she was still an infant her father and mother died and she was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Berent. She and Ellen grew up as sisters.'

At his word, Ruth remembered with sudden clarity the whole panorama of her childhood; remembered Ellen's jealousy of every tenderness Professor Berent showed her, remembered so many hours when Ellen's malice was revealed without concealment.
Yet even through this swift procession of her memories she heard Quinton's careful phrases.

‘Professor Berent treated her in every respect as his daughter. He was a wealthy man. He set up trust funds for his wife and for Ruth and Ellen, the survivor to inherit. His remaining estate was on his death divided among Mrs. Berent, Ruth and Ellen. After Mrs. Berent's death, Ellen and Ruth shared equally. By Ellen's death in turn, Ruth's fortune was approximately doubled, so that it amounted to well over a million dollars.

‘Cupidity and greed have led men — and women — to commit murder in the past; but the State will contend that Ruth Berent had not only her hunger for more money but another motive for murdering her sister.

‘Four years ago this summer, Mrs. Berent, Ellen, and Ruth went to New Mexico, as guests of a ranch owner there. Richard Harland was a guest at the ranch at the same time. At the end of the two weeks of that visit, Ellen and Richard were married.'

Quinton's voice hardened on the word, and Ruth was conscious of sharp tension in the man, and she remembered how angry he had been when he arrived at the ranch too late to prevent — or even to seek to prevent — that marriage. He poured a glass of water, swallowed a little, went quietly on.

‘The State will present evidence that beginning about eighteen months after that marriage, Mr. Harland regularly sought Ruth's company, leaving his wife, who was at that time pregnant with a child which was later stillborn, alone at his home. There will be other evidence suggesting a rupture between him and his wife, evidence which it will be your responsibility to assay.

‘Eight months after this increased attention to Ruth on Mr. Harland's part began, and twenty-six months after the marriage of Ellen and Mr. Harland, the two sisters, Mr. Harland, and Leick Thorne had a picnic at Mr. Thorne's farm, some forty miles west of this town. The four persons present ate, in different quantities, the same things — with one exception. Ellen alone took sugar in her coffee. I ask you to remember this fact. It is also a fact that the defendant knew that Ellen alone would use sugar in her coffee that day.

‘Late that afternoon, three or four hours after eating lunch, Mrs. Harland — Ellen — was taken violently ill. Leick and Mr. Harland carried her to the farmhouse, and a physician was sum moned to attend her; but early next morning she died.

‘Now in the nature of things, murder by poison often goes long unsuspected. The skillful poisoner uses a drug which produces symptoms that may be mistaken for those of a disease. Ellen had suffered previous attacks of indigestion. Her natal illness had a surface similarity to those attacks. The doctor who attended her, being informed of this fact by Mr. Harland, mads a death certificate giving as the cause of death acute gastritis; and for almost two years, the suspicion of poisoning did not arise.

‘When in the case of death by poison suspicion does at last develop, it is customary to order the exhumation of the body and an autopsy. If death was caused by poison, and particularly if death was caused by arsenic, that fact can often be demonstrated by an autopsy, even years after death. In this case, the attending physician suggested having Ellen's body examined by another doctor, but Ruth and Mr. Harland declined this suggest-tion. They took the body to Boston where at Mr. Harland's direction it was cremated — in spite of the fact that Ellen had requested normal burial — and the ashes were delivered to Mr. Harland, who disposed of them beyond recovery. So an autopsy was made forever impossible.'

Ruth whispered quickly to Mr. Pettingill: ‘She wanted to be cremated. She told me so and told Dick so.'

He nodded, lifting his hand to bid her wait, and Quinton went on:

‘In June last, Ruth Berent and Mr. Harland were married. Subsequent to that marriage, investigation led to recognition of the fact that Ellen Harland died under circumstances consistent with arsenic poisoning. The picnickers that day ate, as I have told you, the same things, except that Ellen Harland put sugar in her coffee while the others did not. Some of the sugar was left in the lunch hamper. Analysis shows that it contained arsenic.

‘Professor Berent died before Ellen's marriage; but his hobby
was the collection of bird skins for museums. To preserve these skins he used arsenic. To that arsenic, before and after his death and before and after Ellen's death, Ruth had easy access.

‘The State will prove that Ruth Harland, who had two good reasons to wish Ellen dead, packed the lunch hamper; that she put the arsenic-flavored sugar in it; that she handed the sugar to Ellen during the picnic.'

Mr. Pettingill stirred and came awkwardly to his feet. Ruth noticed with some surprise that — although when they had met heretofore he had presented an appearance that accorded with his position at the bar, and had spoken in cultivated tones — he was today almost shabby, in a suit too large for him and sadly in need of an iron; and when he spoke, it was in terms frankly colloquial.

‘Your Honor,' he remarked. ‘I guess I ought to object to the way Brother Quinton puts his case. He oughtn't to say he's going to prove things. He'd ought to say he's going to try to. It'll be for the jury to decide whether he does it or not.'

Before Judge Andrus could speak, Quinton said quickly: ‘Your Honor, my brother is within his rights, and I suggest the record be amended. These are the facts we propose to try to prove.'

‘Your Honor,' Mr. Pettingill insisted. ‘I don't know as I'd go so far as to say they were facts. Call them allegations.'

‘The State accepts that amendment as well,' Quinton assented. ‘There is no wish to prejudice the jury against the defendant, but only to arrive at the truth of Ellen Harland's death.' Mr. Pettingill sat down again and Quinton turned once more to the jury.

‘The State will further try to prove,' he told them, ‘that investigation led to the discovery in the Bar Harbor house, from which the picnic party that day set out, and in a hiding place known only to the defendant, a small supply of arsenic — kept for I know not what purpose, even after Ellen's death.'

Mr. Pettingill rose again. ‘Your Honor,' he suggested, ‘I sh'd say the least Brother Quinton can do would be to stick to
things he claims to know. If we started talking about all the things he admits he knows not, we'd be here till snow flies.'

A murmur of amusement ran through the crowded room and Quinton reddened, and Judge Andrus said mildly:

‘That last phrase, beginning: “kept for I know not” may be stricken out.'

Quinton — he was perspiring now — proceeded. ‘The State will also try to prove,' he said emphasizing the word ‘try' looking with malicious derision at Mr. Pettingill, ‘that Ruth Berent and Richard Harland were married last June; and the State will argue from that fact and from other evidence that she loved him — and had loved him long before their marriage, and before her sister's death.'

He hesitated, then concluded:

‘In order to prove a charge of murder, it is necessary to establish first of all the fact that a murder was committed; second, that the accused person had the opportunity to commit the crime; third, that there was a motive; and finally, and most important of all, it is necessary to prove to the jury's satisfaction that having motive and opportunity, the accused person did the deed.

‘The State will prove that the sugar with which Ellen that day sweetened her coffee was mixed with arsenic; and that the manner of her death, her symptoms and her sufferings, were consistent with a diagnosis of death by arsenic poisoning. Ellen Harland was poisoned. A crime was committed.

‘Ruth Harland, the defendant here, had the opportunity to commit that crime. She had access to arsenic; she packed the sugar mixed with arsenic in the lunch basket; she gave it to the deceased woman at the picnic to use in her coffee.

‘Ruth Harland, the defendant, had two motives, either of them sufficient to lead her to commit that crime. The death of Ellen Harland made the defendant tremendously wealthy; the death of Ellen Harland cleared the way for this defendant to marry Richard Harland.

‘Ruth Harland, on the fifth of September, some two years ago, by treachery and with malice and intent to murder, administered
to her sister the deadly dose from which that night, next morning, Ellen Harland died.'