And, Barrett had reassured Sanford, there were others being assembled for different purposes. Guy Collins, the popular exponent of the naturalistic novel who had often written about how much he had been favorably influenced by Jadway’s book, had agreed to be a defense witness. Efforts were being made to obtain the support of two or three other literary experts who admired The Seven Minutes. Then, anticipating the District Attorney’s effort to prove, through Jerry Griffith and additional witnesses, that the book’s prurient appeal endangered the youth of America and general community security, both Barrett and Zelkin had sought witnesses to counteract such a contention. For the defense, they had acquired the services of Dr Yale Finegood, a psychiatric authority on juvenile violence and delinquency, and of Dr Rolf Lagergren, a Swedish specialist in sex surveys whose findings had earned him international renown and a visiting professorship at Reardon College in Wisconsin. Both Finegood and Lagergren attributed juvenile crime to causes other than obscene literature and motion pictures, and their enlistment on the side of the defense had been a reason for some optimism.
‘But make one mistake about one thing,’ Barrett had said, guiding the car into the Sunset Boulevard off ramp. ‘The real defendant in this trial will not be Ben Fremont, but J J Jadway. In every major case of this kind, a central issue has always been the author’s motivation and purpose in writing the book, because this would help to establish that his work had some social importance. Now, this is thin ice, and we have to determine whether we dare face crossing it or should detour. We have a choice. So has the District Attorney. Each side has to determine how it intends to proceed before the fireworks begin.’
‘Exactly what do you mean, Mike?’
‘If we don’t have sufficient proof that Jadway’s intent was beyond reproach in his writing The Seven Minutes, we’d be better off asserting that an author’s intent has nothing to do with obscenity, which has been done successfully before. We have Justiee Douglas’ dissent in the Ginzburg case to hide behind. Douglas argued, “A book should stand on its own, irrespective of the reasons why it was written or the wiles used in selling it.” Even if we hold to this, we still might be pushed out on that thin ice by the prosecution. If that happened, we could always fall back on the argument Charles Rembar used in one Fanny Hill appeal. You see, when Rembar defended Lady Chatterley earlier, he had had no trouble proving that Lawrence’s intentions in writing the book were of the best. But in defending Fanny Hill there was rough sledding, because the only evidence about the author’s motives showed that he had written the book cynically, for crassly commercial reasons. Remember? John Cleland was in debtor’s prison. He needed money to get out. A publisher approached him and offered him twenty guineas, enough to get him out of jail, if he wrote a salacious novel to order, one that might sell. So, presumably, Cleland wrote Fanny Hill for that reason, for the money to be freed, and he was released, and the publisher made ten thousand pounds in profit on subsequent sales.’
‘That’s right,’ said Sanford. ‘How did the defense lawyer explain that?’
‘Rembar explained it sensibly. Cleland’s motives, he insisted, were a question of literary history, not of law. As Rembar put it, “The courts simply could not decide, two and a quarter centuries later, what had gone on inside Cleland’s head.” What mattered was the end result, the book, its ideas, its view of life, not the personal reasons that had made an author write his book. Besides, argued Rembar, “It would be both futile and unbecoming… for courts to inquire into the diverse springs of artistic endeavor. The miserable record made by artists as critics of their own work - the ludicrous verbalizations that we sometimes hear from talented people in the nonverbal arts - shows that their stated plans are of little consequence; what they create is of the greatest consequence.” ’
‘What was the final verdict of the judges ?’
‘They said nay. Impressive, but not impressive enough,’ said Barrett sourly. ‘The judges voted three to two for suppression, because they didn’t accept Rembar’s arguments generally.’
‘But you indicated that we have another choice?’
‘We do. The other choice is to face up to what is ahead of us. The preponderance of legal opinion holds that an author’s motivation and intent is one of the important issues in holding a book to be obscene or not. Take Judge Woolsey in the Ulysses trial. He observed, “In any case where a book is claimed to be obscene it must first be determined whether the intent with which it was written was what is called, according to the usual phrase, pornographic,-
that is, written for the purpose of exploiting obscenity.” Later, Judge van Pelt Bryan, is one of the Lady Chatterleycases, added, “The sincerity and honesty of purpose of an author as expressed in a manner in which a book is written and in which his theme and ideas are developed has a great deal to do with whether it is of literary and intellectual merit. Here, as in the Ulysses case, there is no question about Lawrence’s honesty and sincerity of purposes, artistic integrity and lack of intention to appeal to prurient interest.”’
Barrett had paused and glanced at Sanford’s troubled profile. “That’s our issue, Phil. Did Jadway write his book honestly, sincerely, with artistic integrity? That’s the question we have to answer affirmatively and without reservation. It is a question that will be in every juror’s mind. Either we pussyfoot and back away or we set out to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Jadway did not write this book for commercial reasons but wrote it for artistic and moral reasons, so that it has that necessary social importance. Anyway, Abe and I have made our choice. We’ve decided to attempt to prove Jadway’s good intentions.’
Sanford had groaned. ‘How are you ever going to prove that? Jadway’s been dead a million years. He was young, he was nobody, he was practically unknown when he died. Nothing remains to prove his good intentions. You know how hard I’ve dug on my end. I couldn’t turn up a thing. He left nothing, and he can tell us nothing. Dead men tell no tales, to coin an expression.’
‘But ghosts can be very impressive,’ Barrett had said calmly. He had pointed off to his right. ‘By the way, there’s the UCLA campus. Jerry Griffith’s school. I think we may be doing a little research there.’
Sanford had showed no interest in the Los Angeles campus of the University of California. ‘What do you mean about Jadway’s ghost?’
‘Few people die without leaving some heritage behind. Maybe it’s only something of themselves they revealed or bequeathed to friends or acquaintances. We’ve been making use of the budget you gave us for European investigators. We have several scurrying around Paris, and now other points as well. We’re trying to invoke the ghost of Jadway. We’ve learned there was an Italian artist, da Vecchi by name, who used to frequent the cafes in Paris where Jadway hung out in the thirties. We’ve learned that da Vecchi is alive, and that he once painted a portrait of Jadway. If so, that’ll be the first pictorial representation of him to come to light. Anyway, we’re trying to locate the painter. Then we’re on the trail of a Contessa Daphne Orsoni. She’s a Dallas woman who married a rich Italian count. Shortly after Jadway published his book, he was vacationing in Venice, and the Contessa had heard of Jadway’s “naughty” novel and she invited him to a masked ball at he? palazzo. We’ve traced her to Spain. Apparently she has a place on”
the Costa Brava. But to invoke the good ghost, our main hope is still centered on the Frenchman who published the underground version of The Seven Minutes -‘
‘Christian Leroux,’ interrupted Sanford. ‘Have you heard anything more?’
‘Just the same news I gave you a few days ago. Etoile Press has expired, but Leroux is very much among the living. As long as Leroux is alive, we can resurrect Jadway’s shade. If we can get our hands on the French publisher, we’ll have our own star witness, the one we need to offset the Griffith boy’s testimony. After all, Leroux did bring out The Seven Minutes. He must have believed in it, and he must have known a good deal about the book’s author. He’s our man. We’re on his t
rail and getting warm. Kimura hoped to have some word on this today.’
‘We’ve absolutely got to get Leroux,’ said Sanford.
Barrett snorted. ‘You’re telling me?’
A few minutes later he had dropped Phil Sanford off at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where Sanford had reserved a bungalow, and then Barrett had gone on to the office on Wilshire Boulevard. He had spent two hours conferring with Zelkin, making telephone calls, and dictating to Donna Novik, the secretary he shared with Zelkin. He enjoyed working with Donna. She was an eyesore, henna hair, narrow eyes, overly powdered bloated face, frumpy clothes on a shapeless body, but she was a delight because she was as trustworthy as a madonna, fiercely devoted and loyal, and had such astonishing, skills at the stenotyper, the electric typewriter, and the calculator that Barrett sometimes thought she was plugged into an electrical outlet herself.
After Kimura had telephoned that he would be late, Barrett had buzzed Zelkin, and together they had gone to meet Philip Sanford for lunch.
And here they were now. Barrett realized that his forehead was ablaze from the sun and that the glass in his hand was empty and that Zelkin was introducing Sanford to Leo Kimura. Pulling his chair in under the umbrella, Barrett gave Kimura a mock bow, and Kimura bowed back seriously, then settled down in the place left for him. Balancing his bulging briefcase on his knees, he was already unlocking it.
‘You want a drink or are you famished?’ asked Barrett.
‘Famished,’ said Kimura. ‘I feel like the whole Donner Party in one.’ But then he was at once apologetic, like a servant who had considered his own comfort before his employer’s. ‘I can wait, if you prefer to talk first.’
Barrett had great affection for the Nisei attorney. Kimura had a crew cut, a saffron-completed face with features that seemed impassive, and the steely, springy appearance of the kind of person they shoot out of cannons.
‘We prefer to eat and talk,’ said Barrett.
Zelkin was already signaling for menus, and after the menus came they ordered sparingly.
The moment that the captain had gone, they all concentrated on Kimura. ‘Well,’ Zelkin inquired, ‘what’s the latest, Leo?’
Kimura had finished extracting papers from his briefcase. Closing the briefcase, propping it against his chair, he laid his papers on the table before him and looked up. ‘Some progress, I believe. I will save the best for the last. First, Norman C. Quandt.’ He addressed himself to their new client. ‘Mr Sanford, I have here the information you dictated on how you purchased the rights to The Seven Minutes from Mr Quandt. Now that you are here in person before me, I would like the opportunity to learn whether anything was omitted. Could you review the facts of the acquisition once more?’
Sanford shrugged. ‘I doubt if there’s anything I can add. However, I’ll be glad to ran through it again. Two years ago my father sent me to represent him at the Frankfurt Book Fair. I was taken to dinner one night by an old friend of my father’s, Herr Karl Graeber, who owns a solid and well-known publishing house in Munich. We got to discussing the new freedom in writing and publishing, and Graeber said it was a good thing, because soon many works that had long deserved publication might find their way to the public. He mentioned several such works, but the one he admired first and foremost was something called The Seven Minutes. He had hoped to publish it himself, in the period just as Hitler was coming to power, but that had been impossible and he’d been lucky to flee with his life. Since he was re-established in Germany, I asked him why he didn’t undertake it once more. He said that by now he was too old to begin a fight against the Bonn conservatives, and, besides, he was now specializing in textbooks and religious books, and a book such as Jadway’s in his catalogue might harm the rest of his list. Graeber felt that there was far more freedom in America, and hence the book was more likely to have its first accepted public appearance in our country. He felt also that my father’s imprint might give the book a certain protection. I asked who owned the rights to The Seven Minutes. Graeber said he had heard that Leroux had sold the rights to some small borderline publisher in New York named Norman C. Quandt. Graeber located a copy of the Etoile edition and asked me to show it to Wesley R., my father. I was already bringing a number of new books back from the Frankfurt Fair, and so I added the Jadway book to the rest of them. I took a ship home, and since there was plenty of time to read, and what Graeber had told me about the Jadway novel titillated me, I read it. Before I even finished it, I knew that it was nothing I could show my father. It just wasn’t his type of literature. So I showed him the other books I’d found, but not this one. Then last year, as you know, my father fell ill, and I was temporarily put in charge of Sanford House. I was eager to find something unusual and provocative, and I remembered the Jadway book. I thought the timing was right. So I looked up Norman C. Quandt.’
‘He was in New York?’ asked Kimura, brandishing a ballpoint pen.
‘He had offices right on Forty-fourth Street. I saw him there. Quandt was nothing more than a mail-order publisher of hard-core pornography, original paperbacks that specialized in sadism, and masochism. And he was in trouble. He had just been tried in a United States district court on charges brought by the Postmaster General that he was mailing obscene matter.He had been found guilty. He was appealing the lower-court decision and hoping to bring the matter before the United States Supreme Court. He was pressed for money to fight his case, and he was more than happy to sell off his rights to The Seven Minutes. Within three days the contracts were drawn and signed, and I had the Jadway book for five thousand dollars. That’s all I can tell you, Leo. I’m afraid I’ve given you nothing new.’
Kimura had been checking Sanford’s recital with the pages before him. ‘And after that you never saw Quandt again?’
‘Never,’ said Sanford. ‘I followed his appeal to the Supreme Court, of course. As we know, the Supreme Court, purely on a technicality, reversed the decision of the lower court by a five-to-four vote. Quandt was acquitted. Of course, he took an awful beating in the appeals. It was clear he’d been running a shoddy operation, pandering to the most perverted tastes, and I suppose he knew better than to tangle with die postal authorities again. Anyway, when I was getting ready to publish The Seven Minutes, and we needed more jacket copy on Jadway, I thought Quandt might be able to help. You know, I figured he might have heard something from Leroux. So I did call Quandt. He was no longer at the old stand. That’s when I learned he’d given up publishing and moved to Pittsburgh -‘
‘It says Philadelphia here,’ said Kimura.
‘I’m sorry. Yes, Philadelphia. I couldn’t locate him there either, and I had no idea what business he was in by then.’
‘He is in the motion-picture business and he is in Southern California now,’ said Kimura.
Barrett sat up. ‘No kidding, Leo ? When did you find that out ?’
‘Today. But unfortunately there is no Quandt listed in our telephone directories.’
‘If he’s in the movie business, he shouldn’t be hard to find,’ said Zelkin.
For the first time, Kimura smiled faintly. ‘Mr Zelkin, there are movies and there are movies. Anyway, I have some leads, and I expect one should eventually bring us to Mr Quandt.’
Sanford had turned worriedly to Barrett. ‘Mike, you’re not thinking of putting that Quandt on the witness stand if you find him, are you?’
‘Heaven forbid,’ said Barrett. ‘No. But he might provide us with
some vital information on Jadway’s life. In fact, the very information you’d hoped to get from him before, something he might have heard from Leroux.’ Barrett directed himself to Kimura once more. ‘Which brings us to our most important witness. What’s the word on Leroux?’
‘Christian Leroux,’ said Kimura, savoring the name. ‘I was keeping him for last.’ He shuffled his notes, until he had found what he wanted. ‘Christian Leroux. Most hopeful. I have just heard from our man in Paris. He tracked Leroux to an apartment on the Left Bank. A hundred
-franc tip to the concierge produced the information that Leroux had just gone off to the Riviera and had made a reservation at the Hotel Balmoral in Monte Carlo. He should be there any - well, he should have arrived already. Our Paris man hired a private detective in Nice, a Monsieur Dubois, and fully instructed him. This Dubois drove up to Monte Carlo. He will be in the Hotel Balmoral waiting for Leroux to check in.’
‘Very thorough,’ said Barrett. ‘And most hopeful, Leo, as you put it.’
‘Wonderful, wonderful,’ said Sanford, plucking a cigarette from a patch pocket of his canvas jacket.
Kimura had separated a clipped sheaf of notes from the other papers. ‘As to the Griffith family, I have not been able to add substantially to the dossier we have assembled. A few more facts on the backgrounds of Frank Griffith, his wife, Ethel Griffith. No further data on the niece who lives with them, Margaret or Maggie Russell. No chinks in the family armor - yet.’
‘What about the boy?’ inquired Zelkin.
‘I was coming to him,’ said Kimura, flipping the pages. ‘I am afraid we will have to press our investigation harder. I have a start -‘
‘A start ?’ wailed Zelkin. ‘We’ll be selecting a jury in a couple of days. The minute the jury is impaneled, sworn in, the trial begins.’
‘Unless one has a start, there can never be a finish,’ said Kimura. ‘Forgive me, but there is a difficulty in researching one who is still of college age. With a short life, there is no long history. We are acquainted with certain facts. Jerry Griffith was an honor student in prep school. He is now in his third year of college, and he is not doing so well academically. I visited UCLA today. I remembered there are counselors for the students. I was able to find Jerry Griffith’s counsellor. She said she couldn’t discuss Jerry - there’s a rule against giving out information on any student unless there’s clearance from on high. So I went through the required procedure and finally got this clearance from the Dean of the College of Letters and Science. The counselor was notified that she could discuss Jerry with any person from our office. That was a start.’
(1969) The Seven Minutes Page 17