Leave Her to Heaven (35 page)

At the sound of Quinton's name, there was an instant quickening attention across the crowded benches. Quinton took the stand, was sworn. Mr. Shumate stood facing him, put the preliminary questions. Ruth, watching them both, felt the pounding of her heart, and she wondered what was now to come, what testimony Quinton could possibly give, and she listened in a still attention as the quiet interrogation got under way. After the preliminaries, Mr. Shumate asked:

‘Now, Mr. Quinton, were you at some time informed of the death of Mrs. Ellen Harland?'

‘I was.'

‘Did you, as a result of that information, do something?'

‘I did.'

‘Will you tell us what you did at that time?'

‘At the time of her death,' Quinton explained, ‘I was in New Brunswick, duck shooting. I heard about her death a few days after my return. I had known her — and her father before his death — for years, and I felt a deep and sincere grief. I called on Doctor Seyffert to learn the details.'

‘Go on, please.'

‘After talking with him, I went to see Leick,' Quinton continued. ‘He was not at home, but his shed door was open and I stepped inside. I saw a copper boiler and a lunch hamper on the floor near the door that led into the kitchen.'

‘I show you the hamper here marked for identification.'

‘It is the same one.'

‘Had you ever seen it before that day?'

‘I had presented it to Ellen Berent, before her marriage to Mr. Harland.'

‘Under what circumstances?'

‘We were — friends.' Ruth wondered why he did not say they were engaged, but he went quickly on. ‘I had gone to Boston to see her after her father's death. We went for a picnic on the shore north of Boston, and I bought the hamper and gave it to her for that occasion.'

‘When you recognized the hamper, in Leick's shed, what did you do?'

‘I opened it.'

‘How long was this after Mrs. Harland died?'

‘Ten days or two weeks.'

‘What did you see in the hamper?'

‘The ice compartment was half full of water; and a lobster, and some claws, were floating in it. There were thermos bottles, forks, salt and pepper shakers, a bottle of Worcestershire sauce, a can of dry mustard, a sandwich covered with blue mold, some chocolate doughnuts.' He added: ‘Maybe I didn't notice all those things at the time. I just looked in. I didn't touch anything.'

‘What did you then do?'

‘I took the hamper out to my car.'

‘Why?'

‘I had known Ellen for many years. It had been my gift to her. I knew she would be glad for me to have it.'

‘You took it out to your car?'

‘I took it home. On the way home I threw away the stale food, the moldy sandwich, the lobsters.'

‘Did you put anything in the hamper?'

‘No.'

‘You took it home?'

‘I put it away up in the attic.'

‘Did you first clean it, or have it cleaned?'

‘No. I decided that I had had no right to take it, so I hid it behind some trunks, under the eaves.'

‘When did you next see it?'

‘On the eighteenth of last June.'

‘Under what circumstances?'

‘Deputy Hatch, Mrs. Parkins, and I went to my house. I pointed out the hamper to the deputy. He drew it out from where it was hidden. At my direction, without opening it, Mrs. Parkins sealed it with gummed paper. We drove to Augusta and delivered it, still sealed, to Mr. Catterson there.'

‘From the time you put the hamper in the attic till at your direction Deputy Hatch picked it up, did you touch it or see it?'

‘No, sir.'

‘Did anyone else?'

‘Not that I know of. I'm sure no one saw it.'

'Now Mr. Quinton, did you at some time go to the Berent house at Bar Harbor?'

‘Yes.'

‘Under what circumstances?'

‘On June nineteenth, I went there with Mrs. Parkins, Deputy Hatch, and Mrs. Freeman, the housekeeper.'

‘For what purpose?'

‘I had a search warrant. I went to make a search of the house.'

‘In the course of that search, did you find anything?'

‘I found a bottle containing some white powder.'

The Attorney General turned back to the counsel table, and Mrs. Parkins from a suitcase under the table produced a bottle with a wide mouth and a glass stopper. Ruth recognized it. It had once contained bath salts, had been in her bathroom cabinet.

‘I show you this bottle,' said Mr. Shumate.

Quinton took it in his hands. ‘It's the same one,' he said.

The bottle was marked for identification, and Mr. Shumate asked: ‘Where did you find this bottle?'

‘Behind a loose section of baseboard, in the bedroom in the southeast corner of the second floor.'

‘What did you do with it?'

‘I picked it up carefully, with a handkerchief around my hand.
Without touching it with my bare hands, I wrapped and sealed it, in the presence of Mrs. Parkins and Deputy Hatch, and in their presence I delivered it to Mr. Catterson, the state chemist.'

‘Do you know what he did with it?'

‘At my suggestion and in my presence, he had it examined for fingerprints by Mr. Norton. He then analyzed the powder it contained.'

‘By the way, what did Mr. Catterson do with the lunch hamper when you took it to him?'

‘In my presence, he broke the seals, took out the things in it, listed them, and then analyzed the contents of an envelope he found in the hamper.'

The Attorney General nodded and turned to Mr. Pettingill. ‘Your witness,' he said.

Mr. Pettingill, before rising, spoke in a low tone to Ruth and to Harland. ‘No use trying to break him down on that story,' he said. ‘He'll have his secretary and Joe Hatch to back him up. But you notice he left it open for me to ask him why he went to get the hamper when he did, and why he searched the Bar Harbor house. If I ask him, he'll say it was because he had that letter from Ellen, and then I'll have to ask him about that. But if she could have put anything in that letter that we can't handle, I'll keep clear of the whole thing. What do you say?'

Ruth said quickly: ‘I don't know what's in the letter, but I remember that bottle. It had bath salts in it. I kept it in my bathroom cabinet. It was a birthday present, but I used the salts only once or twice, and I never missed the bottle. Ellen discovered that loose baseboard when we shared that room as children, and she called it her secret hiding place and made me promise never to look in it. I hadn't thought of it for years. The carpenters forgot to nail the end of the baseboard, and you could pry it out two or three inches from the wall.'

Pettingill nodded. ‘What about the letter?'

Ruth looked at Harland, asking his agreement. ‘We don't want to keep anything hidden, Mr. Pettingill. I want to know what's in the letter.‘ Harland whispered his assent.

Pettingill hesitated. ‘Well,' he said. ‘I'm taking your word for it that the letter can do no harm.' They were silent, and he reflected: ‘All right, I'll walk into Brother Quinton's trap.' He rose in that laborious way which was his courtroom habit, like an uncertain, feeble old man; and his manner was humble and confused. ‘Well, Mr. Quinton, this about the lunch basket is all news to me,' he remarked, in an interested tone. ‘I want to be sure I've got it straight. You stole the hamper full of rotten lobsters because you'd given it to Mrs. Harland as was, and you wanted it to remember her by. Is that it?'

‘You can have it so!'

‘I don't want it any way only the true way. Is that the way it was?'

‘I didn't consider it stealing.'

‘Well, we all have our ideas about that,' Mr. Pettingill suggested. ‘Most of us country folks have gone off and left our houses unlocked, one time or another, and come home and found something missing; and most generally, unless we know the neighbors have borrowed, we get kind of mad, call the folks that did it thieves. Sometimes summer folks pick up little things for souvenirs, or boys break in and see some gimcrack they want. Course, it's hard on the folks that own the things; but I can see how it might not seem like stealing to the ones that take them.'

Quinton did not answer. Ruth understood that he must have known his testimony would lay him open to this attack, must have hardened himself to endure it. He held his tongue and his composure; and Mr. Pettingill said shrewdly: ‘I judge you had some doubts about it yourself, hiding it away in the attic.' But Quinton held his silence, and the big man asked: ‘Don't you have spring house cleaning at your house, Mr. Quinton?'

‘My mother used to go over everything with a fine-tooth comb, but she‘s dead. The attic hasn't been touched since she died.'

‘Well, I don't hold much with house cleaning myself,' Mr. Pettingill agreed. ‘Anyway, far as you know, no one touched
the hamper, or put anything in it, from the time you stole it out of Leick's shed till the time you went and got it.'

‘I'm sure no one even saw it,' Quinton repeated.

‘So!' the other assented. ‘Now, Mr. Quinton, about that bottle you found behind the baseboard in the Berent house in Bar Harbor, you wrapped a handkerchief around your hand before you touched it?'

‘Yes.'

‘Why did you do that?'

‘So I wouldn't spoil any fingerprints there might be on it.'

‘And so you wouldn't get your own fingerprints on it?'

‘Yes, of course.'

‘Well now, if you could handle the bottle that way and not leave any marks on it, then whoever put it in behind the baseboard could have done the same thing, couldn't they?'

Quinton hesitated. ‘If they thought of it.'

‘Anybody that didn't want their fingerprints on it would likely think of it, wouldn't they?'

‘They might.'

‘And if they did, their fingerprints wouldn't show, would they? And whoever's fingerprints were on it before it was put behind the baseboard would still be there, wouldn't they?'

‘I suppose so.'

‘Put it this way,' Mr. Pettingill suggested. ‘Just for instance, suppose that bottle belonged to Mrs. Ruth Harland, so's her fingerprints were naturally on it, and then supposing Ellen wrapped a handkerchief around her hand and picked up the bottle and went and hid it, then the bottle would still have Ruth Hear-land's fingerprints on it, but it wouldn't have Ellen's. That right?'

Quinton's lips were tight. ‘I suppose so.'

‘Well, you're a pretty good supposer,' Mr. Pettingill said cheerfully. ‘Now, Brother Quinton, about stealing the hamper. I sh'd judge you're telling the truth about that. Nobody'd own up to a thing like that only if it was the truth. But there's one place where you left out something. I don't know what it
was you left out, but we want to find out all we can about this business. The more truth comes out, the better we like it. So here's the point. You put the hamper away in your attic, and for nigh on to two years, far as you know, there it stayed. You didn't go up and look at it, to remind you of Mrs. Harland; didn't do anything like that. And then all of a sudden, you took Deputy Hatch and your secretary, and rushed off and got that hamper, and carried it clear over to Augusta and gave it to Mr. Catterson. Now, Mr. Quinton, why did you do that?'

Quinton said readily: ‘Because I received information that Mrs. Harland had been poisoned, and I thought the hamper might contain some evidence one way or the other.'

‘Well, now we're getting somewhere. Go on. Tell us about that information. Where did it come from?'

Ruth realized that her hands under the edge of the table were so tightly clenched that the nails hurt her palms. She tried to relax, and Quinton said: ‘I received a letter.'

‘Got it with you?'

‘Right here.' Quinton produced from his pocket a sealed envelope; and Mr. Pettingill took it and examined it, turning it in his hands.

‘Your Honor,' he said then, ‘maybe I'm a little out of order. This is sealed and it bears certain signatures across the flap. Maybe Mr. Quinton intends to put this letter in evidence later?' His tone was an inquiry addressed to Quinton.

‘I intend to offer it,' Quinton agreed, ‘after the groundwork has been properly laid.'

‘Well now,' Mr. Pettingill declared, ‘I want to let you put in your case your own way. Maybe this isn't the right time. I don't want to push you. What say if His Honor and you and me take a minute to talk it over?'

Judge Andrus interposed. ‘Court will recess for fifteen minutes,' he directed; and as the jury filed out he called Mr. Pettingill to the bench, and Quinton too. They followed him out of the courtroom, and Attorney General Shumate went to join them in the judge's chambers.

That recess, while Pettingill and Quinton and the Attorney General were closeted with Judge Andrus, lasted for thirty-five minutes instead of fifteen. Ruth stayed seated at the counsel table, Harland beside her, Deputy Hatch somnolent in his chair at her back; and behind her, waves of whispering ran along the packed benches where the spectators sat. Ruth might have found the waiting more bitter than she did but for the fact that Harland needed her reassurance. He mopped his damp brow, constantly shifting his position; and she wished to take him in her arms, to bring him peace. Since with so many eyes upon them she could not even touch his hand, she whispered her endearments, leaning toward him, murmuring:

‘Darling, pretend we're just talking about the case, but I do love you so!'

He said helplessly: ‘What do you suppose is in that letter?'

‘Hush, my dear! Don't torment yourself. Look at me, into my eyes; feel me loving you. This will all be over, soon, and we can be happy again.' And to distract him she said: ‘Then we'll go back to the river, as we'd planned, buy that land we liked so much. We'll make a world of our own there, Dick.'

‘It's too late to go this year.'

‘It's never too late, darling. We'll stay till snow flies, till the river freezes. We'll get a crew of men to work there all winter. We'll clear the ground and level it, and transplant some trees, and plant lawns and flowers and shrubs, and build a house. There'll be so much to do, years of work and planning. We'll start as soon as this is over.'

He said wretchedly: ‘We don't know how this is going to come out!'

‘Of course we do. It's all mumbo-jumbo, darling; but two or three days will see the end of it.'

She poured her own strength into him, winning him at last to some composure; and presently Mr. Pettingill came back to them.

‘Smile,' he directed in a low tone. Ruth saw agitation in his
eyes. ‘Look happy while I'm talking to you.' Ruth obeyed, and Harland tried to. ‘Ellen wrote the letter all right,' Pettingill told them. ‘She says in it that you'd tried to poison her twice before, once with apple pie at Bar Harbor after Mr. Harland's brother was drowned, and once with curry in Boston; and she says she expects you'll try again, and that if she dies and you marry Mr. Harland, Quinton can be sure you killed her.'

Ruth held her meaningless smile, looking at Harland. ‘Those were the two times she was sick,' she reminded him. He nodded, unable to speak. Quinton and Mr. Shumate returned to their table; and Pettingill chuckled — for the benefit of whoever might be watching.

‘I can keep the letter out,' he suggested. ‘It's not admissible as evidence. The judge will exclude it if I ask him to.'

Harland whispered: ‘For God's sake, yes, do that!'

But Ruth said: ‘No. Whatever she says, it isn't true, and we're not afraid of lies.' She touched Harland's hand. ‘It's all right, darling! Please.'

He met her eyes, turned after a moment to the lawyer. ‘She's right, of course,' he agreed, more steadily. ‘I can't think straight, but she always sees the truth. We'll do what she says.'

The jury filed back to their places, and Judge Andrus returned to the bench. ‘All right,' Mr. Pettingill assented, doubt in his tones. ‘I'll go ahead. But this is going to be bad. It'll hurt.' Quinton once more took his place on the stand, and the big man rose to face him.

‘Now, Mr. Quinton,' he said, ‘you were telling us that you received a certain letter. Has anyone besides you read it, up to now?'

‘No.'

‘Tell the jury what shape it is in now.'

‘When I had read it, I sealed it up, in the presence of witnesses. It is still in that sealed envelope.'

‘Who were the witnesses?'

‘Deputy Hatch and my secretary, Mrs. Parkins.'

‘You figure to have them identify this sealed envelope later?'

‘Yes.'

‘And then you will offer the letter?'

‘Yes.'

‘All right,' Mr. Pettingill agreed. ‘We'll wait for that. That'll do for now.'

Quinton, upon leaving the stand, called first Mrs. Parkins and then Deputy Hatch, leading them to identify their signatures on the still-sealed envelope containing Ellen's letter, and to describe the recovery of the hamper and the finding of the bottle. Their stories paralleled Quinton's as exactly as though they were made from the same master record, and Pettingill let them go without questions. ‘Never does any good to butt your head against a stone wall,' he told Ruth over his shoulder.

‘Mrs. Parkins is in love with him,' she whispered. ‘It sticks out all over her.'

He said drily: ‘That'd be a first-rate match. They're a pair.'

Then Quinton said: ‘I now propose, Your Honor, unless there is an objection, to offer this letter.'

Mr. Pettingill rose. ‘Well, Brother Quinton,' he said, ‘I'll have to read it before I know whether it's good evidence or not.' Quinton hesitated, uncertain how to proceed; and Mr. Pettingill said: ‘Go ahead and open it.'

Quinton obeyed him. Mr. Pettingill took the letter, and stepped to the bench. He and Judge Andrus read the letter, and this was a slow business. Ruth, watching them, shook with the thudding of her heart, and the crowded courtroom lay under a breathless silence. Then Mr. Pettingill returned to the counsel table, but without sitting down he asked:

‘Brother Quinton, for what purpose do you offer this letter?'

‘To answer your question as to why I investigated the circumstances of Mrs. Harland's death.'

Pettingill nodded. ‘Your Honor,' he said, ‘this letter, so far as what it says goes, is not competent evidence.'

Quinton spoke quickly: ‘Your Honor, on my cross-examination I was asked why I investigated Mrs. Harland's death.
That letter is the answer. The answer is responsive to the question, and the letter for that purpose is competent.'

‘Your Honor,' Mr. Pettingill explained. ‘My brother is a little previous. We do not object to the admission of this letter. We want all the facts in the jury's hands. But we request that the jury be warned that nothing in the letter is evidence of the truth of any statements the writer makes. With that stipulation we agree to its admission, to show what started Brother Quinton into action.'

Judge Andrus hesitated. ‘If there were an objection,' he said at last, addressing the jury, ‘I should exclude this letter.' He looked in doubtful surprise at Mr. Pettingill, then went on: ‘Since there is none, I will let it be read. But gentlemen of the jury, I instruct you that nothing in this letter is evidence, and you are neither to believe nor disbelieve anything it says. It contains some accusations which you will ignore and disregard. It is to be taken as explaining why the investigation leading to this indictment was begun.' He spoke to Quinton. ‘You may read the letter to the jury,' he said.