“Now then, I must go, Wes,” she said. “You may never see me again.”
There were thrush notes of emotion in her voice, all the more effective because they were used with moderation.
“This is your last chance,” she said. “Public humiliation and a terrible end—or the path of reason. Wes, let me get you a new lawyer. Change your plea. Do it for Gran.”
“All right, all right,” he sobbed, “but let me alone, will you? Just stop it. Oh, God, they said the truth would make me free, but nobody believes me, not even Sidney Grant. He thinks I’m lying like everyone else. It’s true—he only wants to have a murder case.”
“Of course it’s true,” she said. “Well, darling Wes, we’ll have you back in the hospital tonight, and I will tell Mr. Grant that you don’t require his services any more.”
“Good. Tell me now, Mrs. Beattie,” Sidney Grant said.
She swung around and saw Sidney and June, who had just entered the visitors’ room. Extreme irritation showed on her face.
“Very well, Mr. Grant, I will tell you now. Your services are no longer required. My grandson is making other arrangements.”
“Is this true, Wes?” Sidney said.
Wes looked at him in anguish.
“I—I don’t know what to do,” he sobbed.
“You have made a wise decision. Stick to it,” Mrs. Beattie said.
“Perhaps your grandmother is right, Wes,” Sidney said. “If you killed your Uncle Edgar, she is right. Plead insanity, and I will pull out with the greatest pleasure.”
Wes sobbed incontinently, his head bowed over, and then he looked up and between sobs said: “I—didn’t— kill—him. That’s all I know. I’m frightened of hanging, I admit it, but I’d rather have it over than spend a hundred years in a looney bin. Juney, what should I do?”
“Follow your lawyer’s advice,” she said. “If you killed Uncle Edgar, fire Mr. Grant and plead insane. If you didn’t kill him, tell our revered grandmother to go jump in the lake.”
Wes sat up and stared at her with his mouth open.
“Go on,” June said. “Tell her to go jump in the lake. That’s what you need. Bust this thing wide open, now. She’s got you, boy! She’s an enchantress, like Circe. She ties you up in knots. She’s utterly selfish and unscrupulous. She’s the guilty one all through the piece. Her own convenience means more than anything. Now brace up, boy, and tell her, before she sells you to the funny farm.”
Wes was awestruck, almost paralyzed, and then he shuddered.
“Go on, say it,” June said.
“Gran, go jump in the lake,” Wes said, like a man in a trance.
Mrs. Beattie rose from her chair, like Nazimova making an exit.
“I forgive you, Wes,” she said. “It was your sister, not you, who said it. You are a poor, weak, impressionable fool. She is her mother again. I regret, June, that I ever dragged you from the gutter where you learned your manners.” And with that she swept from the room.
“Sorry, Wes,” June said. “I don’t normally advise young men to be rude to old ladies, but this was a purely therapeutic measure.”
Thirteen
SIDNEY CONSIDERED SEEKING a remand, stalling for time in order to check out some more facts, but a conversation with Massingham, the Crown Attorney, which took place on Monday morning, convinced him that delay could be psychologically disastrous.
Massingham, a very large man, drove Sidney into a corner, and, speaking with considerable sweetness, gave him a piece of his mind.
“I now know what your game is, Grant,” he said. “You’ve been buzzing about quite a bit. Well I, too, have made some investigations, and I am here and now giving you a friendly warning. You got to hear about Wes Beattie’s delusions. You thought it would be amusing to substantiate them. You worked on his sister to get yourself appointed and elbow Baldwin Ogilvy off the course. Then you had a great slice of luck. Black was murdered. At first I didn’t see the connection, but when I learned that Black had once been a witness against Beattie, all became crystal clear.”
“Oh—you get the picture, do you?” Sidney said.
“I most certainly do. Black was a crook. He left large bank balances. It was a typical gang-slaying effort, but it served your purposes very well. From some underworld source, you gained possession of the weapon which killed Black. Also, from underworld sources, you learned about Howard Gadwell’s obscene film racket. What a splendid opportunity! You decided to fabricate a conspiracy against Beattie, along the lines of the one he imagined. Gadwell became your scapegoat.
“Fortunately, I checked into certain activities of yours. You—and June Beattie—gave an alibi to Snake Rivers, a known burglar. The police were keeping an eye on the spot where Rivers had hidden certain illegal tools. Those tools were spirited away in a foreign car. I have talked with the informant and ascertained that the car was a Citroën. You, June Beattie and Rivers went to Muskoka in a Citroën. You took the murder weapon which had been given you to dispose of. You used Snake Rivers to break into the boathouse at Flatiron Island. You took the ice drill, bored a hole in the ice, dropped the gun, then marked the spot with an oar.
“Then you went to the police and claimed to have ‘certain information.’ The police would find the gun, and you would suggest that Gadwell dropped it there. You would say that Gadwell killed Black to shut his mouth—that Black had committed perjury as part of this alleged conspiracy. Then you would claim that Wes was framed because he knew something about this film racket—something he had stumbled on in the bank. It is a beautiful thought, Grant. But I’m giving you fair warning: don’t try it!”
“That’s most ingenious,” Sidney said. “You’re away ahead of Wes at concocting conspiracies.”
“Oh, am I?” Massingham said. “And perhaps ahead of Mr. Sidney Grant as well. Now then, it appears that you are an accessory after the fact in the murder of Black. For some criminal client, you have diverted suspicion to Gadwell. You—and June Beattie, your dupe—cooperated with a burglary syndicate to divert the attention of police from that big job in the East End. In due course we’re going to wring Snake Rivers out, and June Beattie, and your promising young career at the bar will be finished. I have a good mind to interrupt this trial and commence action against you now.
“For your own ends, you are throwing Wes to the wolves. For sheer notoriety. Wes had a good chance to avoid trial and go to an institution. You are going to hang him. Once he is convicted, it will be almost impossible to have his sentence commuted. However, since he obviously killed his uncle, and he will be no loss to society, I have decided not to intervene at this stage. But I want you to know that you and June are going to pay for what you did, and you might as well realize it.”
“Massingham,” Sidney said, “all I can say at this moment is that you’re wrong. Dead wrong. And I’ll warn you, too. If you allow Gadwell to slip through your fingers and get away to Brazil, you’ll regret it. Keep an eye on him, and if he attempts to leave town, grab him.”
“Oh, we will, we will, never fear,” Massingham said. “He may be a key figure in certain proceedings against a young barrister—and I will personally vouch for it that he won’t slip away.”
“Thank you,” Sidney said, “that’s all I wanted to know.”
It wasn’t all that he wanted to know, but it was something.
Sidney found that the pit of his stomach had disappeared. He had a sudden vision of June Beattie in the dock, charged with aiding and abetting. Massingham turned away.
“By the way,” Sidney called after him, “did the provincials find the weapon? How did the fishing go?”
“They found it all right,” Massingham called back over his shoulder. “A thirty-eight-caliber automatic fitted with a silencer. It took them two days, but they got it, and the ballistics experts say it’s the gun that killed Black. But of course I don’t need to tell you that.”
And, when court convened, Sidney Grant in his black gown felt sick through and through.
/>
The case had sensational aspects, and the courtroom was crowded, even though the opening of the trial was bound to be mere routine. The press box was full, and a caricaturist was busy sketching the principals in the trial, drawing the burly Massingham like some medieval bishop in his black robe, and Sidney Grant as a small and demoniacal acolyte. Miss Semple, who had handed over the office to a telephone answering service, was beside her employer, and her amazing red bouffant did not escape the caricaturist’s eye.
In the front row of the spectators’ section Ralph Paget, anxiety peeping through his calm exterior, sat next to Claudia Beattie, large and aggressive. Next to her, smartly turned out, but on her best behavior, was June, who sent a little smile in Sidney’s direction, and Sidney found it difficult to smile back. Beside June, well supplied with Kleenex, Betty Martin sat with her eyes glued to the back of Mr. Wes’s neck.
Wes, in the dock, tried to sit straight and be calm, but there was terror in his eyes.
Mr. Justice Blaine entered and took his seat on the bench, and the crowd rose and became silent. An official intoned the time-honored words: “Oyez, Oyez, Oyez, all persons having anything to do before my Lord the Queen’s Justice of the Supreme Court of Ontario at its sittings of Assize and Nisi Prius, Oyer and Terminer and General Gaol Delivery draw near and give your attendance. God Save the Queen.”
At that moment it would have been difficult to believe that the city of Buffalo, New York, was only sixty miles away as the crow flies.
Events moved slowly at first. Selecting a jury occupied the whole of the first day, and the second day was taken up pretty well with routine evidence. There was an autopsy surgeon, who gave the cause of death and described the probable nature of the blow—a very powerful blow from behind. He identified the blackthorn stick as the probable murder weapon, and it was introduced as an exhibit. Sidney, in cross-examination, asked him if he had examined the accused. The surgeon said no, but he had seen him.
“Did he appear to be a powerful man?”
“No.”
“Was he the sort of man one would expect could deliver such a blow?”
“Well, frankly, no, but…”
“That is all,” Sidney said.
But Massingham had more questions.
“Would you say it was possible for the accused to deliver such a blow?”
“Yes sir. Under strong emotion—anger, fear or some such—I would say he was quite strong enough to deliver the blow.”
The surgeon was followed by police witnesses. One of them was a fingerprint expert, who said that the only prints on the blackthorn stick were those of Miss Churcher, the housekeeper, and those of Edgar himself. But he told about lifting latent prints from the telephone in the apartment—it was entered as an exhibit—and identified them as the prints of the accused. In his opinion the prints had been made within the few days preceding the murder.
Then a police inspector read statements made by Wes Beattie after his arrest. The effect was pitiful. Wes could not help squirming as the inspector’s voice droned on: “Well, these guys I was with were called Pete and Al. I met them in this beverage room. I’m not sure which one it was. Down Jarvis or Sherbourne maybe.” And later: “Well no, it wasn’t true. See, that’s what I told my grandmother when I got home, but in fact I was out with this girl. At her house, see? Her parents were out. No, I won’t tell you her name.” Still later: “Well no, see, she wasn’t a girl, she was a married woman, and honest, her husband would kill her if he ever found out.”
The jury looked at the boyish prisoner in the dock and exchanged smiles.
Finally, Wes’s statement about the mystery gang was read, and the jurors shook their heads.
Sidney Grant did not oppose the introduction of any of the statements. It was useless. But the effect of the statements on the jurors was even more damaging than he had feared.
The police witnesses were followed by two women and a man who had seen Wes lurking near the scene of the crime. Two said they had seen him there on the fatal Friday evening; the other had seen him “several times” during the preceding days. One woman saw him at the outer door of the apartment, trying to open it with a key, and when she stopped and stared, he turned and walked off furtively.
Sidney was keenly aware that the police had selected the three witnesses from a couple of dozen volunteers. In every murder, people come forward to report suspicious things they have seen. Imagination usually plays a large part in their evidence, and they are always prepared to fight off cross-examination with great hostility.
It was scarcely worth attacking them, especially since Wes was prepared to admit that he had hung about the place. Sidney passed these witnesses over lightly. But he knew they had caused further damage. Once he turned and caught June’s eye, and she looked at him from a face drained of emotion.
After the people who had seen Wes lurking came a witness who showed that Massingham was determined to touch every base. His name was Alfred Rimmer, and he was a plant wire chief with the telephone company. Mr. Rimmer was as pinstriped and perfect as Ralph Paget himself, and he had obviously completed the course in public speaking offered by the Junior Chamber of Commerce.
In the witness box, he drew the neatly folded handkerchief from his breast pocket and patted his brow, then replaced the handkerchief with great care. In answer to questions, he stated that the telephone in the murder apartment was of a type called the oval-based handset, an obsolescent type that had not been used for many years in new installations. In fact, he said, it was a comparatively rare instrument. He said that the telephone on exhibit in court was certainly the instrument which he had removed from the apartment at the request of police, doing the work himself because of the importance of the occasion.
Company records showed that the original installation in the Beattie apartment had been an oval-based handset, and that it had never been changed.
“Your witness,” Massingham said.
“The phone was never changed by the company?” Sidney asked.
“No sir,” Rimmer said, speaking with precision.
“Somebody else might have changed it, without the company records knowing it?”
“Yes sir. But…”
“Just answer the questions, please,” Sidney said. “Now, is it possible for a private citizen to get possession of a phone like this?”
Rimmer thought carefully.
“Yes or no.”
“Well, yes. Station equipment of this type could be purchased from our own suppliers.”
“Station equipment?” the judge said testily. “We’re talking about an apartment.”
Rimmer smiled sweetly. “In the company terminology, my Lord,” he said, “telephone instruments and other plant installed on the subscriber’s premises are referred to as ‘station equipment.’”
“Are they really?” the judge said.
“Now then,” Sidney continued, suppressing a smile, “suppose somebody installed another oval-based handset in that apartment. Is there any serial number by which you could detect the change?”
“Well, no sir,” Rimmer said.
“In short, all you can say is that this piece of station equipment is of the same type as the one originally installed in the apartment?”
“Yes sir.”
“You can’t swear that it’s the actual one?”
“No sir.”
But Massingham was not letting that go. He ascertained that oval-based handsets had not been available from the supplier for years and that it was most unusual for private citizens to own “station equipment.”
“Ordinarily, all equipment on a subscriber’s premises is company property,” Rimmer said.
Whereupon Sidney had a go at him again. “Are there certain classes of citizen who do, to your knowledge, own telephones?” he asked.
Rimmer looked uncomfortable
“Come, come,” Sidney said. “I refer specifically to bookmakers and boiler-room operators. By boiler-room operators I mean operators
of stock promotion outfits who solicit prospects by telephone. Don’t they sometimes have their own phones?”
“Don’t answer unless you know of your own knowledge,” Massingham said.
“Have you ever followed a police raid into a bookie’s office?” Sidney said.
“Yes,” Rimmer admitted.
“Did you find telephones there, connected to company lines, which were not company property?”
“Yes sir.”
“And have you encountered the same thing in these so-called boiler rooms?”
“Yes sir.”
“Thank you.”
Massingham sat glowering for a minute, but then a slow grin spread over his broad face, and the grin became a chuckle. He looked like a man who had just watched an enemy fall into his trap.
“Call Mr. Ralph Paget,” he said.
***
The laws of evidence are to a large extent bound up with the doctrine of hearsay, which is not evidence. Broadly speaking, a witness may not repeat on oath something that he has heard someone say, but there are large areas of exception. He may repeat what he heard the accused say, or something he heard someone say in the presence of the accused. But remove the accused from earshot, and the witness can report no more of the conversation.
Massingham carefully established that Edgar Beattie had twice discussed his will in detail with Wes Beattie, in the presence of Ralph Paget, and therefore it was possible for Paget to repeat the entire conversations in the witness box, and he did it in a most businesslike way, standing very straight and looking directly ahead of him.
He made it entirely clear to the jury that Edgar had willed a sum of money to Wes and that the sum had been multiplied by stock market gains. He also made it clear that Edgar had informed his nephew that he meant to change the will, and there were nods of understanding in the jury box as the jurors got the message. Jurors glanced at Wes, who was squirming. The motive was established once and for all.
Sidney rose to cross-examine, and Paget turned his head forty-five degrees, ostentatiously avoiding his questioner’s eye.
The Weird World of Wes Beattie Page 15