So when old Doc Turnbull, who visited me in my cell before the trial, remarked kindly that he was sure I hadn't done it, I replied in despair: “But that's just it! How can you say I didn't kill her when I don't even know myself?”
Unless my periodic amnesia was coupled with an unreasonable dementia, there was no motive for my killing Anita—;as far as I was concerned. Gilberte's letter which I never read and which the State offered in evidence, had had nothing to do with it. I certainly did not murder Anita for Gilberte or for any other woman. Nevertheless, the translation of the letter in court did sound bad. Blackman read it aloud, punctuating each sentence with a knowing glance toward the jury and stressing certain words and phrases which, I am sure, Gilberte had never meant to be stressed.
Translated, it ran something like the following:
August 8, 1919
Dearest Peter,
Perhaps I should not write to you... but you forgot to forbid it. It seems so long ago that we parted in the garden! I sit there seldom nowadays because invariably it evokes sad memories and I do not wish to think about you. That would be sheer masochism, nothing more. Oh, Peter, if only you knew how wretched I am! By now you are with your wife, pretending that you are happy. For you are pretending, you know. You can't possibly be happy with that woman. From what you have told me about her, I am sure that she doesn't care for you... at least not half as much as I do. That is the terrible part about life: the people who love are rarely loved in return. Sometimes I find myself d reaming that one morning you will awake and find her gone... run off with another man or—;yes, you've guessed it—;dead. With her out of the way, I know that you'd come back to me, wouldn't you, Peter? But it is just a dream. I cannot hope for so simple a solution to my problem... the problem that is turning me from a young girl into a sour old woman.
I suppose it is useless to ask you to write. You will, as always, follow the dictates of your heart.
Your miserable,
Gilberte.
Sitting there day after day in court, I watched the chain of circumstantial evidence grow stronger. After each witness testified, I saw the worried frown upon the face of my lawyer deepen. He was a very conscientious chap, Mr. Bristol; and I am sure he believed me absolutely innocent. If this was so, he was the only person, aside from Doctor Turnbull, who did.
They subpoenaed my assistant, Tom Murphy, who grudgingly admitted that he had heard Anita and me quarreling; had seen the carving-knife—;State's Exhibit C—;in my hand when I answered the door; and that he had delivered to me, at my request, a potent compound of sodium amytal upon the night in question.
“Did you hear any of the words, Mr. Murphy?”
“Yes, I'm afraid I did. I heard her scream....
“Go on, Mr. Murphy. What did she scream?”
“I heard her yelling that he was hurting her.”
The prosecution then went on to establish that I had been in a rare fury all through the day of August 20th. They called Mrs. Wainscott and Mr. and Mrs. Mackintosh to the stand. The last mentioned witness so deftly misused her words that the jury was left with the impression that I had drawn and quartered her precious Jackie instead of mildly spanked him.
Next, to my astonishment, Anita's extracted teeth were offered in evidence. The prosecution suggested that I had knocked them loose from her mouth with an angry blow!
Photographs depicting the scene of the crime, the wrecked kitchen and living-room, the preponderance of blood and the gory trail to the lake shore made the jury shudder and glance at me as though I were some grotesque curiosity. The blood-encrusted carving-knife; a torn, blood-soaked dress of Anita's which I had not been shown before; and my own stained trousers completed the major points of the State's case.
But they were unable to produce a corpus delicti.
Counsellor Bristol made much of this; it was his entire case, in fact. “How can there be a murder,” he demanded, “without someone getting killed? And if someone was killed, who has seen the body? Lord Hale and Sir Edward Coke, those world-famous interpreters of law, positively forbid convictions unless the fact of murder has been proven. A corpus delicti must be established! And to establish the same, there must first be a body and proof that the deceased perished by a criminal agency. It is easy to understand why these precautions must be taken. To quote Blackstone: 'It is far better that ten guilty escape than one innocent man be punished and made to suffer for naught.' In this case, there were no eye-witnesses to the crime... if such a crime did actually take place. How then can we assume that on the night of August the twentieth this man did feloniously assault and kill his wife? The State has produced slim evidence indeed that this man was in love with another woman I From the letter, State's Exhibit B, it is admitted that the woman was in love with the Defendant. But by what evidence can the State prove that my client reciprocated her feelings? As a matter of fact, is it not more logical to suppose that, if my client really loved this woman, he would not have returned to his wife at all? The State has proved nothing of any importance. They have placed many articles in evidence but they have not proved, within the faintest shadow of a doubt, that these were used to commit a crime. The very weapon, this blood-stained knife, which the State presumes was the death agent; by what right can my worthy opponent claim such was the case? How does he know that death was not brought about by poison, by strangulation, by a pistol? How does he know there has been a death at all? Certainly there is nothing more innocuous than a sleeping powder! How has the State shown that it was used to drug a victim in order that murder might be done without a struggle? And regarding the heated quarrel the State makes so much of: does every petty argument between husband and wife always lead to violence and homicide? Show me the man who has never had words with his wife! And take note of this, gentlemen of the jury. A man administers a much-deserved spanking; does that label him a potential killer? If that were so, how many parents would now be languishing in prisons! I have said before, and I will say again, that it is up to the prosecution to prove my client guilty. He is not required to prove his innocence! Has the State done so? Have they proved that Peter Thatcher lies when he says that the teeth, marked State's Exhibit D, were extracted by a New York City dentist? There is no case here!”
When my lawyer had finished summing up, Assistant District Attorney Blackman got to his feet. “The overwhelming evidence of murder in this case,” he began, “is quite sufficient for us to presume death. By the trail of blood leading down to the shore of the lake, we can be certain, within the faintest shadow of a doubt, that the body was dragged there and thrown in, perhaps weighted down with stones. It is difficult to recover a body thus disposed of. The shifting currents of any large body of water, particularly a so-called bottomless lake like Cayuga, will ofttimes carry whatever has been thrown in, back and forth. If the body is weighted, it is possible that it may never be recovered.” Blackman paused, pointed an accusing finger in my direction, and then went on in a grand manner. “Are we to allow a murderer to go unpunished because he has been clever enough to successfully destroy the evidence of his guilt? Picture for yourselves, gentlemen of the jury, what chaos would come if we established such a precedent here in this courtroom! A fiend could commit a murder on the high seas, before a hundred witnesses, and, tossing his victim over the rail, laugh at our courts if the body was not recovered! Here we have a man, a person known to have suffered mental relapses due to shell-shock; known to have engaged in a furious battle with his wife; seen with this same knife, now covered with blood, in his hand by one of the witnesses who inadvertently interrupted the fight; caught by an officer of the law, whose testimony you heard; and clad in these bloody trousers! What more can you ask? You have heard read a passionate appeal from this man's mistress that he kill his wife and return to her side. The Defendant swears that he was unable to read that letter. Do you believe that? Would that woman have written so dangerous a letter to him in a language she knew he could not understand—;without getting someone to translate it
for him? You know that the Defendant sent his victim into New York City on the afternoon of August the twentieth. Isn't it logical to suppose that, in view of the evidence, he did this to get her out of the way so that he might more carefully set the scene for his heinous deed? You have heard sworn testimony to the fact that Peter Thatcher ordered a sleeping powder—;ostensibly because his wife's teeth were giving her trouble. Yet, we are unable to extract from him the name of the dentist he claims she visited! Is it logical to suppose that a man would be ignorant of the identity of his wife's dentist? Can we not safely assume that the sleeping powder was intended—;no, was actually employed—;for quite another purpose? We must not overlook the fact that the Defendant was making use of a potent drug, the use of which is forbidden unless upon a physician's written prescription. And furthermore, gentlemen, remember that the Defendant, when I frankly questioned him, did not even bother to deny that he was guilty of the charges as set forth in the indictment! To the question, 'Peter Thatcher, didn't you drug and kill your wife on the night of August the twentieth, using this knife as a weapon and later disposing of the body, by throwing it into the lake?' he replied: 'I don't know! I really don't know! There was no reason why I should have killed her!'“ Here, the Assistant District Attorney waxed violent. He pounded emphatically upon the jury-box rail. “Is that the answer an innocent man would make? Is it? Can we, as citizens engaged in meting out justice, possibly free a man who is not himself convinced of his own innocence? How can there remain the slightest doubt but that somewhere in the chill waters of Lake Cayuga floats submerged the ghastly remains of the young wife Peter Thatcher so ruthlessly slew in order that he might return to the obviously depraved woman he really loved! Are we to permit this? You have noticed that the Defense is based only upon one detail: that the forces of Nature have prevented us from establishing the missing corpse. With the body of the woman, we would have a clear case. But, are we so blind, so idiotic, so unwilling to be intelligent that we must, like Doubting Thomas, peer into the very wounds? Cannot even a child perceive that a murder has been committed and that the perpetrator has been apprehended and brought to justice? This man, Peter Thatcher, claims that he loved his wife and that she loved him. If this is so, and he did not brutally murder her, I ask the Defense just one thing: Where is Anita Hunt Thatcher?”
The jury went out on September the second. They remained locked up for five and a half hours. During this time, I was taken back to my cell where my lawyer, Mr. Bristol, gave me a good talking to.
“You see,” he ranted. “What did I tell you? When the District Attorney asked you if you killed her, you should have denied it!”
“But how do I know I didn't?” I asked him.
“How do you know you did?” he countered sourly. “It's a good thing that they're not entitled to convict without establishing the body... or you'd be sunk!”
I looked up into Bristol's face anxiously. “Can't they do anything to me?”
The lawyer pulled at the roots of his hair and rolled his eyes upward in despair. “Don't be an ass, Thatcher! Anything can happen if the jury wants it to. If they take a fancy to you or believe that you're innocent; the State can produce a hundred bodies, your signed and notarized confession, even a picture of you committing the crime! You'd still be acquitted!” He began to pace the floor distractedly. I really believe that he was more nervous about the verdict than I was.
This might be a good time to mention how I happened to engage Mr. Bristol to handle my defense. He came to me, highly recommended by my old friend Mrs. Michaelson, who was taking a great interest in the case. Knowing very well that I had never had any large amount of ready cash, she informed me that Bristol would be willing to represent me without a retainer. I gratefully clutched at this opportunity, you may be sure; and I at once engaged him. However, Mrs. Michaelson's information proved quite inaccurate. Before the trial came up on the calendar of Judge Foley, Counsellor Bristol was in possession not only of four hundred dollars of my money, but of the deed to my home as well.
I did not begrudge him this. First of all, I knew that with Anita gone, I could never bring myself to enter that house again. Under its roof brooded a secret which I might never be able to uncover. Every nook and cranny of the place would taunt me. If I tried to live there in the future, I would most certainly go mad. In the event that I was exonerated of the charges against me, I was only too keenly aware that my life could not continue without some radical change of course. Ithaca would never accept me again; there were bound to be people who would think me guilty; and my business was sure to suffer commensurate losses. Then, too, I would be faced with memories there: persons who had known her, walls which had once enclosed her, shops she had been accustomed to patronize.
It was of no use, you see. Anita's passing carried me along as though in an unbreakable death hold; and so bewildered was I, that I was almost wishing that I would not be acquitted. I would be at a loss what to do.
Of course the people from my home town were all very nice to me. Mrs. Michaelson and Doctor Turnbull and several others came down to see me, bringing little gifts of candy and cigarettes, and trying their utmost to cheer me up. But these few were really the only friends I had. To most of Ithaca's inhabitants, I was merely a familiar face, an inanimate object that fetched what they demanded, like a retriever.
The newspapers did not make much of the case. On the evening of August 21st, the day of my arrest, a short column was all that appeared in the New York City sheets. The local paper, of course, came out with banner headlines which read: DRUGGIST HELD FOR HOMICIDE. In the sub-headings, and there were fully four of them, came the usual journalistic hyperboles, and reading about myself and my affairs was quite puzzling. Yes, indeed. To my amazement, I was described as prosperous, handsome and popular! My little house and unpretentious grounds were declared an estate! In fact, the only thing that the papers did not grossly exaggerate and distort out of all proportion was Anita's loveliness. “The body of beautiful Anita Thatcher has not as yet been recovered,” the Journal-News announced, “but the police are confident that within twenty-four hours... etc., etc....”
While my mind wandered back over the events that had transpired since my sudden arrest, my lawyer continued to pace up and down, striking his hands together frequently and muttering under his breath. “Yes,” he would reiterate, as though to convince himself, “they're not entitled to convict you without a corpus delicti. How can there possibly be a conviction for murder without proof that someone died?” He came to a halt in front of me and looked down at me as I lay full-length upon the cot. I could see that his eyes were troubled. “The worst they could do would be to find you guilty of manslaughter. They haven't established the weapon; neither have they proved premeditation. But juries are funny,” he went on, shaking his head dubiously from side to side. “They do what they want.”
“Oh,” I murmured, although I could not understand why that should be permitted. It did not seem quite right that humans should judge humans and wield the power of life and death which, according to the theologians, should be vested solely in Divinity.
“Blackman scored a good point,” glumly admitted my attorney, “when he demanded to know the whereabouts of your wife. I'd give a thousand dollars to know that! Look, Thatcher, can't you try and think....”
I sighed wearily. He had asked me the same thing at least ten times before. “It's no use. I've tried, Mr. Bristol. There was absolutely no reason for her to disappear. Besides... how about that blood?”
Bristol grunted his disappointment. “Yes, that's right. I keep forgetting. Oh, no doubt she's dead all right. But who killed her? You didn't.”
“No?” I asked earnestly.
“I give up! You're impossible, man! How in hell can I defend you if you talk like that?” The lawyer strode angrily to the cell door and shouted for the turnkey to let him out.
“Are you going up?” I asked disinterestedly. The way I was feeling then, I didn't care what he did.
> “I suppose so,” was the vexed reply. “The jury can't stay out much longer. There's a rumor circulating in the court that they stand eight to four for acquittal. But you know how those things are. Only God and the jury can verify it.”
When the cell door had clanged shut behind him and his footsteps had died away in the distance, I got up from the cot and began to pace a bit myself. I felt utterly miserable. Anita's face kept coming back to haunt me. Although I could not be certain that I was guilty, I felt like a murderer. I felt like one of those ugly newspaper portraits plastered under, above and between the lurid headlines I had so often read during the quiet evenings in my garden. I began to think that I must have killed her. For I had taken a life once before, if you remember. Was it not logical to suppose that I had plunged the carving-knife into Anita just as I had done to the German boy a year before?
But why?
Why indeed! Must there be a reason for everything, I asked myself. If I had worn my uniform would I have been legally entitled to kill Anita? If the knife had not been a carving-knife, but a trench-knife or a bayonet stamped: PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, would I now be freed? Would Carter have nodded his head and the Sarge patted me on the back?
These hysterical thoughts, these unanswerable questions, these incoherent emanations of a tortured brain kept me occupied while I waited for twelve strange men to decide my fate.
But, unbelievable as it sounds, I was not so much interested in the verdict—;which might even mean my execution—;as I was in finding out whether or not I had been instrumental in bringing about my beloved wife's end. That she was dead, I had no doubt. But was I her murderer?
Footsteps sounded in the corridor. They approached and stopped before my cell. “Come on, Thatcher,” I heard the turnkey say. “The jury's come in.” When, at last, he had delivered me into the custody of two tall deputies, he added: “Good luck, buddy. And whatever it is, take it standing up.”
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